What I'm Reading...
Collected Poems (W.B Yeats)
The Poetry of Robert Frost
Collected Poems (W.H Auden)
Stories (Anton Chekhov)
Collected Stories (Raymond Carver)
Collected Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges)
Collected Poems (Ted Hughes)
The Poetry of Robert Frost
Collected Poems (W.H Auden)
Stories (Anton Chekhov)
Collected Stories (Raymond Carver)
Collected Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges)
Collected Poems (Ted Hughes)
Deacon King Kong (James McBride) -- August 12, 2021
Unworthy Republic (Claudio Saunt) -- August 3, 2021
Memorial (Bryan Washington) -- July 11, 2021
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act (Bob Joseph) -- July 1, 2021
A Children's Bible (Lydia Millet) -- June 27, 2021
Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu) -- June 19, 2021
Stakes is High (Mychal Denzel Smith) -- June 12, 2021
Nishga (Jordan Abel) -- June 5, 2021
Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison) -- May 31, 2021
Lost Children Archive (Valeria Luiselli) -- May 21, 2021
Real Life (Brandon Taylor) -- April 25, 2021
Shakespeare in A Divided America (Jams Shapiro) -- April 16, 2021
Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart) -- April 3, 2021
Transcendent Kingdom (Yaa Gyasi) -- March 22, 2021
Dissipatio H.G. (Guido Morselli) -- March 16, 2021
The World Broke in Two (Bill Goldstein) -- March 12, 2021
There Will Be No Miracles Here (Casey Gerald) -- February 15, 2021
Middlemarch (George Eliot) -- January 24, 2021
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Kiese Laymon) -- December 21, 2020
Indians on Vacation (Thomas King) -- December 13, 2020)
Take Up Arms Against a Sea of Troubles (Harold Bloom) -- November 31, 2020
High School (Tegan Quinn and Sara Quinn) (Finished November 6, 2020)
The Magnetic Fields (Andre Breton and Phillipe Soupault) (Finished October 25, 2020)
The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) (Finished October 23, 2020)
The Color of Law (Richard Rothstein) (Finished October 8, 2020)
Jonny Appleseed (Joshua Whitehead) (Finished September 19, 2020)
How to be Anti-Racist (Ibram X. Kendi) (Finished September 6, 2020)
Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde) (Finished August 28, 2020)
Of Color (Jaswinder Bolina) (Finished August 12, 2020)
Night Boat to Tangier (Kevin Barry) (August 10, 2020)
How We Fight for Our Lives (Saeed Jones) (Finished August 4, 2020)
Exhalation (Ted Chiang) (Finished August 1, 2020)
White Rage (Carol Anderson) (Finished July 26, 2020)
White Fragility (Robin Diangelo) (Finished July 21, 2020)
The Skin We're In (Desmond Cole) (Finished July 17, 2020)
Black Berry, Sweet Juice (Lawrence Hill) (Finished July 7, 2020)
Invisible Man Got the Whole World Watching (Mychal Denzel Smith) (Finished June 30, 2020)
Are You My Mother? (Alison Bechdel) (June 27, 2020)
White Teeth (Zadie Smith) (Finished June 17, 2020)
An American Childhood (Annie Dillard) (Finished May 25, 2020)
All Our Relations (Tanya Talaga) (Finished May 20, 2020)
Stoner (John Williams) (Finished May 16, 2020)
Lot (Bryan Washington) (Finished May 11, 2020)
Hocus Pocus (Kurt Vonnegut) (Finished May 6, 2020)
In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson) (Finished April 30, 2020)
Hunger (Roxanne Gay) (Finished April 22, 2020)
The Testaments (Margaret Atwood) (Finished April 19, 2020)
The Brain That Changes Itself (Norman Doidge) (Finished April 13, 2020)
Long Day's Journey into Night (Eugene O'Neill) (Finished April 9, 2020)
Killing Commendatore (Haruki Murakami) (Finished April 7, 2020)
One Native Life (Richard Wagamese) (Finished March 28, 2020)
X (Chuck Klosterman) (Finished march 26, 2020)
Detroit (Charlie LeDuff) (Finished March 22, 2020)
Super Sad True Love Story (Gary Shteyngart) (Finished March 15, 2020)
The Yellow House (Sarah Broom) (Finisjed March 7, 2020)
Reader Come Home (Maryanne Wolf) (Finished February 16, 2020)
Thick (Tressie Mcmillan Colton) (Finished February 1, 2020)
Krik? Krak! (Edwidge Danticat) (Finished January 25, 2020)
Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness (Rhodi Lewis) (Finished January 18, 2020)
In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado) (Finished December 31, 2019)
Winter (Ali Smith) (Finished December 28, 2019)
Hamlet in Purgatory (Stephen Greenblatt) (Finished December 23, 2019)
Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin) (Finished December 7, 2019)
Seven Fallen Feathers (Tanya Talaga) (Finished November 29, 2019)
The Water Dancer (Ta-Nehisi Coates) (Finished November 16, 2019)
Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (David Health Justice) (Finished November 1, 2019)
Stamped From the Beginning (Ibram X. Kendi) (Finished October 25, 2019)
The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead) (Finished September 20, 2019)
Semi-Colon (Cecilia Watson) (Finished September 8, 2019)
The Overstory (Richard Powers) (Finished September 3, 2019)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin) (Finished August 21, 2019)
Orlando (Virginia Woolf) (Finished August 15, 2019)
The Righteous Mind (Jonathan Haidt) (Finished August 7, 2019)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon) (Finished July 23, 2019)
Men Without Women (Haruki Murakami) (Finished July 14, 2019)
Salvage the Bones (Jesmyn Ward) (Finished July 8, 2019)
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (Dennis Johnson) (Finished July 1, 2019)
Stay, Illusion: The Hamlet Doctrine (Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster) (Finished June 22, 2019)
The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin) (Finished June 9, 2019)
Possessed by Memory (Harold Bloom) (Finished May 22, 2019)
Son of a Trickster (Eden Robinson) (Finished April 25, 2019)
My Absolute Darling (Gabriel Tallent) (Finished April 15, 2019)
Delicate Edible Birds (Lauren Groff) -- while Groff's most recent short story collection, Florida, is often considered by readers and critics to be her best work, I prefer this earlier offering; evocative prose, a great variety of settings, characters and theme, this is must-have for any fan of the short story genre. (Finished March 29, 2019)
Dryer's English (Benjamin Dryer) -- one night not expect a grammar and style handbook for writers to be very entertaining, but this one certainly is; Dryer not only examines common grammatical and spelling errors (ones that are covered in ever high school), but he also frequently points out that despite what many people believe about the English language, there are very few hard-and-fast rules when it comes to writing. His style tips for quality writing--regardless of the purpose and audience--are valuable to students, journalists, teachers, academics, and anyone who requires a mastery of language to be successful in their given field of study or work. (Finished March 22, 2019)
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (Nancy Isenberg) -- a compelling and thoroughly-researched book on the origins and evolution of the social class in America often referred to as "poor white trash"; examining history, economics, politics and popular culture, Isenberg makes a compelling case for how this much-maligned demographic of American society is not the result of personal or genetic character flaws, but rather a deliberate establishment of a class hierarchy dating back to the first British settlers in America, one that has been maintained (perhaps sometimes even unconsciously) by politicians and average citizens ever since. In the era of Trump, this is required reading. (Finished March 15, 2019)
Fresh Complaint (Jeffrey Eugenides) -- this latest offering by the immensely talented Eugenides is a bit of a let down; a collection of stories gathered from as far back as the early 1990s, the prose and characters are always top-notch, but the handling of certain subject matter will definitely feel a bit dated for younger readers. Not seriously flawed, but not particularly noteworthy either. (Finished February 17, 2019)
The Mars Room (Rachel Kushner) -- an unflinching look at life in a maximum security women's prison, this novel jumps back and forth from the past to the present, examining the series of choices--and lack of choices--that lead a single mother to be sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder; Kushner's extensive research into the conditions of women's prisons in American makes the realism of the absurdities, brutalities and injustices all the more compelling. (Finished February 9, 2019)
Friday Black (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah) -- this short, but nonetheless very impressive, short story debut is unforgiving in its scathing look at America and its racism, materialism and hypocrisy; while most of the stories could be classified as "dystopian", all but one of them feels eerily close to the world we live in right now. (Finished February 2, 2019)
From Here to Eternity (Caitlin Doughty) -- despite being focused entirely on unique (and beautiful) funeral practices around the world, this part-memoir, part-travel journal is very often quite humorous; as in her memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Doughty takes an unflinching look at the reality of death, and how our narrow expectations and limited understandings of loss and grieving often make the experience of losing someone--or even planning or own eventual memorial in advance--far more stressful and traumatic than it needs to be. (Finished January 25, 2019)
Man Gone Down (Michael Thomas) -- despite being written and set over a decade ago, this story of a young black father struggling to not only provide for his family, but also create some kind of authentic identity for himself, is very much still relevant to Black experience in America today; while there is arguably only two instances of overt racism in the entire book, one can clearly see how things like expectations--from friends, family, colleagues, even strangers--can illustrate the institutional racism in even the most "liberal" of communities. (Finished January 19, 2019)
Your Heart is A Muscle the Size of a Fist (Sunil Yapa) -- set during the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, this debut novel weaves several character arcs together, finally having them all converge towards the ends of the story. While Yapa clearly has potential, he perhaps attempted to cover too much thematic and political ground; by trying to get a variety of perspectives on this very controversial event, he comes up a bit short on giving some characters an adequate backstory to help explain their motivations. (Finished January 1, 2019)
Born A Crime (Trevor Noah) -- a must-read for fans of Trevor Noah's work as a stand-up comedian and/or his work as host of The Daily Show, this is an exceptionally well-written and engaging memoir of growing up as a bi-racial child in apartheid South Africa; despite the seriousness and uncomfortable subject matter, this book is never short on Noah's trademark dry humour. (Finished December 28, 2018)
Florida (Lauren Groff) -- a fine short story collection in which every story is set in the state of (surprise!) Florida; while Groff's prose is exceptionally good, and all of her characters very well-drawn, there is a tendency for some thematic redundancy in two or three of the stories. (Finished December 25, 2018)
Minds Make Societies (Pascal Boyer) -- a fascinating (yet challenging) look at how the human mind creates a variety of complex--and often perplexing--social interactions and group formations; dense with research in anthropology, psychology, neuroscience and political science, this is not an easy read by any means, but is still incredibly valuable in its insights into how and why we act they way we do in the modern world. (Finished December 17, 2018)
Autumn (Ali Smith) -- an engaging first installment of a trilogy, this novel deals with the unlikely friendship of a young girl and her older, eccentric neighbour in rural England; jumping back and forth through time--from their first meeting when she is ten to the present day two decades later, where is in a coma in a hospice--the story is both stylistically and thematically varied. (Finished November 28, 2018)
Brother (David Chariandy) -- a tragic (yet also hopeful) story of two Trinidadian brothers being raised by their single mother in suburban Toronto in the late 1980s; while the prose is vivid and poetic and engaging, and the insights into family, community, poverty and race are unflinching and insightful, at just under 200 pages, one feels that so much more could have explored more deeply had the author chose to make the book longer. (Finished November 18, 2018)
Why Young Men (Jamil Jivani) -- part memoir, part investigative report, and part sociological study, this incisive work deconstructs the many complex variables--such as poverty, race, family, friendship, education, law enforcement and religion--that lead vulnerable young men to fall into lives defined by violence; while Jivani offers no easy or simplistic answers, he offers those who work with young men--be they teachers, preachers, social workers or law enforcement--a means to understand how and why these boys often act they way they do, and how it's not always for the reasons one might expect or assume. (Finished November 12, 2018)
The Mansion (William Faulkner) -- an overall satisfying end to Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy, this final installment ties up most of the proverbial loose ends left by the first two books, while all the while maintain an eye both humorous and critical of the post-Antebellum American south in the early-to-mid 20th century. (Finished October 30, 2018)
Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann) -- in this compelling hybrid of narrative and journalistic non-fiction, the author examines in meticulous detail the story of the series of targeted murders of members of the Osage Indian tribe in the early decades of the 20th century; weaving in history, money, politics and racism, Gran paints a tragic--and yet all too relevant--portrait of exploitation and brutalization of Native Americans. (Finished October 6, 2018)
Leaving the Sea (Ben Marcus) -- despite consistently strong writing throughout, this short story collections feels lacking in the handful of vague, pseudo-dystopian narratives that seem to be trying to comment on our modern flaws, yet with no clear contextual clues fall short in their attempt at social commentary; that said, the stories that do give readers some semblance of context are superb. (Finished September 23, 2018)
The Line Becomes a River (Francisco Cantu) -- this heart-wrenching and brutally honest memoir examines the two years the author--a first generation Mexican American--spends after university working for the Border Patrol Agency in the southern United States; supplemented by brief historical anecdotes about the volatile origins and history of the U.S.-Mexico border, the story never once feels overtly political (no politicians or parties are ever named) or emotionally manipulative. Required reading for anyone with the slightest interest in the on-going history of immigration--both legal and illegal--between Mexico and the United States. (Finished September 2, 2018)
The Written World (Martin Pucher) -- a passionate and well-researched examination of the history of significant stories that have shaped the world as we know it, in some cases for the better, in others not so much; while this work may not be all that original to those well-read in literary history--and it does feel a bit rushed towards the end--it is nevertheless an impressive and commendable work of non-fiction that never feels dull, due to the author's effective use of personal anecdotes and travel stories woven into the historical research. (Finished August 29, 2018)
The Town (William Faulkner) -- the second book in the Snopes trilogy, this one moves and much faster pace than the first installment in the series, and is more entreating in the insights it gives into the central characters introduced in the first book. (Finished August 22, 2018)
The Power (Naomi Alderman) -- a truly original and ingenious work of speculative fiction, this novel examines a very near future in which women evolve to have the ability to conduct and send electrical charges--in small or fatal amounts--at will; while the narrative seems spread a bit thin at times in trying to cover so many different themes (misogyny, political corruption and revolution, violence, the business of war, and more), this book is the definition of a "page-turner". (Finished August 15, 2018)
Wild Things (Bruce Handy) -- a heartfelt and very personal look at the joys and discoveries of re-reading classic children's literature as an adult; an excellent choice for parents of young children who share of love of storytime. (Finished August 10, 2018)
There There (Tommy Orange) -- a very impressive debut novel by a young Native American author, this novel weaves the stories of multiple characters' lives around the central idea of the struggles of being an "urban Indian", people who have little to no connection to any of the rituals and traditions of their peoples' past; funny, gritty, and thought-provoking from beginning to end. (Finished August 4, 2018)
Calypso (David Sedaris) -- while hilarious in typical Sedaris fashion, this newest collection of anecdotal personal essays feels--at times--much more heartfelt and reflective than his previous works; moving and funny in equal measure. (Finished July 28, 2018)
The Hamlet (William Faulkner) -- the first book in the Snopes trilogy, this typical Faulkner tale deals with the eccentricities of small town life in the Southern Unite States at the turn of the 20th century; while funny and evocative of the time and place, the novel's purpose seems to be establishing characters and storylines to be developed in the next two volumes of the series. (Finished July 22, 2018)
Monkey Beach (Eden Robinson) -- a funny and tragic story of a young Native girl growing up in Kitimat, B.C.; an absorbing narrative, filled with love, loss, beauty and the supernatural. (Finished July 8, 2018)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt) -- despite coming in at just under 600 pages, this tale of wealth, privilege, murder and memory is surprisingly well-paced and, despite Tartt's trademark detailed descriptions of her characters and their surroundings, the story never once seems to drag. (Finished June 30, 2018)
On Paper (Nicholas Basbanes) -- while meticulously researched and, at times, quite interesting, this work fails to capture the magic of the author's previous ventures; only for those with a strong desire for the intricate history of paper and its origins around the world. (Finished June 14, 2018)
Sing, Unburied, Sing (Jesmyn Ward) -- part family history, part road trip, and part ghost story, Ward's impressive novel touches on all manner of themes, from history, to racism, to family, to love, regret, and forgiveness. (Finished May 23, 2018)
Educated (Tara Westover) -- inspiring and enraging in equal measure, this compelling memoir follows the life of a young Mormon girl who, despite growing up in a home run by a paranoid and mentally ill father who tired to shelter her from the world and all its perceived evils, manages to earn her way into a local university, and eventually earns a doctorate in history from Cambridge. (Finished May 17, 2018)
Pachinko (Min Jin Lee) -- a detailed, emotional family saga spanning several generations of Korean immigrants (voluntary and not) in Japan, from the turn of the 20th century to the present day; while likely too long and detailed for those who like fast-moving stories, Lee's ability to create complex landscapes and characters is nevertheless impressive. (Finished May 5, 2018)
Into the Grey Zone (Adrian Owen) -- part neuroscience, part memoir, this book delves into the author's experiences investigating what happens--if anything--in the brains of people who have been declared "brain dead". A fascinating and accessible read, suited for those interested in brain science and/or medical ethics. (Finished April 13, 2018)
Bit Rot (Douglas Coupland) -- a collection of essays, short stories and novel excerpts that span Coupland's writing career, with particular focus on ideas/observations that--if not recorded--could eventually become obsolete (hence the title); whie there are moments of insight and whimsy, this only something a die-heard Coupland fan would appreciate. (Finished April 7, 2018)
Beloved (Toni Morrison) -- part slave story, part ghost story, this unflinching poetic novel follows the lives of several freed slaves following the end of the Civil War as they attempt to come to terms with the horrors of their past, and the challenges of being "free" in society that still sees them as inferior in every respect. (Finished March 29, 2018)
Suttree (Cormac McCarthy) -- following the life and misadventures of a homeless man in Knoxville in the early 1950s, this is a "lesser known" work of the author, but it is nevertheless one of his most rewarding, combining his typical gritty realism with humour and unsentimental emotional honesty. (Finished March 24, 2018)
The Lost City of Z (David Grann) -- an engaging and thoughtful work of journalism and memoir, this book explores the fascination the world has had with the mysterious disappearance of a group of English explorers in the Amazon jungle in 1928, and traces what has happened to those who have dared to try to find evidence of what happened to them, including the author himself. (Finished March 14, 2018).
How to Do Things With Fictions (Joshua Landy) -- this is a book that challenges the widespread assumption that literary texts must be informative or morally improving to be of any real benefit; it reveals that authors are often best thought of not as entertainers or as educators but as personal trainers of the brain, putting their willing readers through exercises that fortify their mental capacities. (Finished March 3, 2018)
Loitering (Charles D'Ambrosio) -- a hit-and-miss collection of the author's prose pieces, touching on issues such as personal loss, our strong ties to the physical places in which we spend our childhood, and the struggles--both public and private--that give our lives meaning. (Finished February 24, 2018)
The North Water (Ian McGuire) -- a gritty and graphically violent novel set on a whaling ship in the north Atlantic at the turn of the century, this is certainly a page-turner, but perhaps lacking depth in its look at the brutal realities of human nature it describes. (Finished February 10, 2018)
The Door (Magda Szabo) -- despite being the recipient of much critical praise--and despite tackling some pretty weighty themes--this slender novel was ultimately dull and unsatisfying. (Finished February 4, 2018)
The Storytelling Animal (Jonathan Gottschall) -- drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, this fascinating book what it means to be a storytelling animal, and explains how stories can change the world for the better. (Finished January 27, 2018)
Imagine Wanting Only This (Kirsten Radtke) -- a subtly powerful graphic memoir of a young woman coming to terms with her place in the world following her graduation from university, the lingering pain from the long ago loss of a beloved family member, and a recently ended relationship. (Finished January 21, 2018)
Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado) -- a stunning debut short story collection, touching on sex and sexuality, politics, art, family, love, and all with small and large flourishes of magic realism with unflinching honesty. (Finished January 14, 2018)
Manhatten Beach (Jennifer Egan) -- while perhaps not quite as original in structure as her previous novel (the excellent A Visit From the Goon Squad), this is nevertheless a very satisfying story of a young girl coming to terms with the loss of her father, her sudden independence, and the gender roles expected of her in the wartime America of the 1940s. (Finished January 6, 2018)
Against Everything (Mark Greif) -- an eclectic and thought-provoking collection of essays--written between 2003 and 2015--that takes a critical look at a variety of subjects: democracy, poverty, pop culture, the sexualisation of children by the media, the problematic nature of policing, and many more. (Finished December 27, 2017)
Redeployment (Phil Klay) -- a gritty and unapologetic collection of short stories that examines the lives of American soldiers in Iraq, and what their lives become once they return home. (Finished December 18, 2017)
What We See When We Read (Peter Mendelsun) -- a curious text, at least in terms of structure and visuals, that examines how and what readers "see" (and do not see) when they read a written text; while some may write the format off as a gimmick, the author nevertheless provides some interesting insights into the expectations and misunderstandings of mental imagery in a reader's mind. (Finished December 11, 2017)
The Return (Roberto Bolano) -- one of several books published from draft manuscripts discovered following the author's death, this collection tackles typical Bolano themes--love, death, sex, purpose--in typical Bolano style--simple yet evocative prose and indeterminate endings. (Finished December 4, 2017)
Beautiful and Pointless (David Orr) -- a funny, honest and insightful examination of the role poetry plays, doesn't play, and could play in the modern world. (Finished November 25, 2017)
Nocturnes (Kazuo Ishigiro) -- while an interesting concept--a collection of stories that are centered around music and those that play it--this collection seems to lack the overall emotional and intellectual satisfaction of Ishigiro's novels. (Finished November 18, 2017)
The Swerve (Stephen Greenblatt) -- a fascinating account of how the random discovery of an ancient poem over five centuries ago led to some of the significant scientific and philosophical insights that have, in one way or another, shaped the modern world. (Finished November 12, 2017)
A Short History of Indians in Canada (Thomas King) -- In typical King fashion, these short stories address both the banality and unexpected magic of life in Canada, for both Native and non-Native citizens, using humour at almost every turn to disarm and question in equal measure. (Finished October 22, 2017)
The Faraway Nearby (Rebecca Solnit) -- an intimate and personal work of non-fiction that could easily be classified as memoir, but is often much more in its tackling of love, family, mortality, travel and history. (Finished October 13, 2017)
Why Poetry (Matthew Zapruder) -- part academic treatise, part memoir, this short but engaging text convincingly explains how and why poetry is often (mis)taught in classrooms at every level of academia, but also provides clear and accessible strategies--for educators and readers alike--to bridge the common disconnect between readers and poetry. (Finished September 28, 2017)
Evicted (Matthew Desmond) -- a thorough, heartbreaking, unflinchingly honest examination of what it means to be poor in America; while focused only on a handful of people (renters and landlords alike) in Milwaukee, the issues and patterns of hopelessness and institutionalized oppression are universal. (Finished September 21, 2017)
Here I Am (Jonathan Safran Foer) -- a complex, descriptive and layered novel that follows the trials and tribulations of Jewish-American family in the United States; touching on history, politics, racism, family, technology, traditions and what it means to love ones family, this is arguably the strongest and most compelling of Foer's three novels. (Finished September 9, 2017)
Shakespeare's Freedom (Stephen Greenblatt) -- a fascinating and engaging piece of academic writing that examines the social and political aspects of Shakespeare's personal life and his plays within their respective historical contexts. (Finished August 29, 2017)
Negroland (Margo Jefferson) -- a compelling memoir about growing up in a wealthy middle-class black family in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s, this book examines the subtleties of institutional racism and the often-unspoken of resentment between members of black communities of differing economic classes. (Finished August 28, 2017)
Born With a Tooth (Joseph Boyden) -- a gritty and brutally honest examination of the lives of First Nations people on reservations in remote areas of Canada; difficult, but vitally important, stories. (Finished August 23, 2017)
Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (Maryanne Wolf) -- while the content of this book--the importance and value of being, and raising, literate human beings--is unquestionably significant, it will likely come across as dry to any reader who is not a parent, teacher or academic; the same ideas are covered in a far more engaging way in Wolf's previous book, Proust and The Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. (Finished August 16, 2017)
But What If We're Wrong? (Chuck Klosterman) -- examining our history of being wrong--about art, science, the universe, etc.--Klosterman combines personal anecdote, expert interviews, and wild speculation into an engaging look at our human tendency to believe we are "right", when so often the passage of time has proven we were anything but. (Finished August 12, 2017)
Zero K (Don Delillo) -- working from an interesting premise--the freezing of humans for re-animation in the future--this novel does a respectable job of examining strained parent-child relationships, the morality of the wealthy elite, and the universal human experience of mortality, but at times can be--like its physical descriptions--a bit stark and cold; not terrible, but not brilliant either.
The Sellout (Paul Beatty) -- a dark yet hilarious satire of race relations in America--both past and present--this novel follows the absurd adventures of its narrator, which range from being experimented on by his psychologist father, helping out an elderly neighbour who repays his kindness by offering to be his slave, and trying to save his small town from extinction by re-introducing segregated public schools. (Finished August 1, 2017)
Hillbilly Elegy (J.D. Vance) -- a moving memoir that describes several decades and generations in the lives of one large, extended family from Appalachia; aside from the personal stories, the book is a critical examination of poverty in white America, looking at why it happens, what "fixes" have been tried and failed, why it continues, and what both individuals and social institutions can do to help reduce it. (Finished July 21, 2017)
Moonglow (Michael Chabon) -- blurring the line between fact and fiction, this creative work uses as its nucleus the stories the author's grandfather told to him in the days before he died; what follows is a multi-generational tale of love, tragedy, forgiveness and American enterprise. (Finished July 14, 2017)
Patoralia (George Saunders) -- an earlier short story collection by a master of the genre, this is a thoughtful and whimsical collection of tales that, while not reaching the brilliance of his most recent collection, Tenth of December, is nevertheless an enjoyable read. (Finished July 1, 2017)
The Lonely City (Olivia Laing) - part personal memoir, part cultural history, this fascinating book looks at the impact--both personally and creatively--of loneliness in both the life of the author and the lives of several artists who lived and worked in America in the 20th century. (Finished June 24, 2017)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Madeline Thien) -- an impressive an engaging story that spans several decades of Chinese history, from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square and into the present, and follows the lives of several families and their friends whose lives are irrevocably affected by history, politics, art, music, poetry and love; a beautiful and poetic novel. (Finished June 10, 2017)
Ghettocide (Jill Leovy) -- a meticulously researched and compelling piece of journalism, this book examines two years in the lives of the crime-ridden suburbs of Los Angeles, following both the citizens of the communities and the police detectives tasked with investigating the staggering number of homicides that occur in these same communities; a book that will surely challenge any preconceived notions of race, crime and policing in the United States. (Finished May 8, 2017)
Heroes of the Frontier (Dave Eggers) -- the story of a divorced dentist who rents a motorhome and travels throughout Alaska with her two young children while trying to cope with aspects of both her past and present, and where her responsibility lies in each; a creative premise, and generally entertaining, marred only by the odd absurd plot twist. (Finished April 20, 2017)
Moral Tribes (Joshua Greene) -- a thoroughly researched, although at times a bit dry, examination of the how politics and religion can be divisive in contemporary society, and how both individuals and groups might overcome some faulty logic in their own belief systems and find common ground with those they disagree with; certainly relevant and applicable to the modern world, in more ways than one. (Finished April 6, 2017)
Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders) -- the stunning first novel from a modern master of the short story examines the death of the son of Abraham Lincoln by blending historical documents, Buddhist philosophy, and personal tragedy in over 100 different "voices"; truly original and emotionally engaging. (Finished March 21, 2017)
Being Wrong (Kathryn Schulz) -- using examples from everyday people, criminal cases, history and contemporary politics and business, this thought-provoking book examines why, how, and how often we are wrong in our most basic assumptions about ourselves and the world, and what we can do to catch--and correct--ourselves when we are. (Finished March 16, 2017)
California (Edan Lepucki) -- an unique take on the dystopian novel, and one that imagines a world not that far from where we are now in terms of time, and certainly believable in the imagined human response to disaster, be it environmental, economic or social; despite a less-than-satisfying conclusion, this novel, the author's first, hints at great potential to come with her subsequent efforts. (Finished February 18, 2017)
The Professor and the Madman (Simon Winchester) -- a thoroughly researched and consistently engaging story of the tragic life of one of the men credited with the creation of the Oxford English dictionary; a fine example of how true stories are indeed often stranger than any fiction. (Finished January 31, 2017)
All Families Are Psychotic (Douglas Coupland) -- a predictably amusing and absurd story of a highly dysfunctional family, but one that perhaps lacks the subtle insights into the complexities of life that are found in other Coupland works. (Finished January 21, 2017)
The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead) -- an unflinching and original look at the history of slavery and slave narratives, centered around the historic underground railroad, which the novel treats as a literal reality and not a metaphor; brutal at times, but rewarding in its imagination and complex characters. (Finished January 8, 2017)
Trickster Makes this World (Lewis Hyde) -- a fascinating look at trickster mythology around the world, and how it's idea and insights into human nature have influenced writers, musicians and artists well into the 20th century. (Finished December 30, 2016)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) -- an eerily prescient dystopian novel about an America where they line between church and state no longer exists, and the governing powers have distorted religion for their own personal (read: selfish) gains. Tense and thought-provoking, and more urgent than when it was published 30 years ago. (Finished December 17, 2016)
The Secret Life of Stories (Michael Berube) -- a short, dense, but overall interesting look at the depiction and effect of mental disability in works of fiction; covering works by authors such as Faulkner, J.K. Rowling, Cervantes, Joyce, Nabokov and Philip K. Dick, the author walks us through how stories with characters with cognitive disabilities are not a puzzle or problem for the reader to diagnose or solve, but rather an opportunity for both author and reader to explore the expanding possibilities of narrative. (Finished December 5, 2016)
Running with Scissors (Augusten Burrows) -- equally funny and disturbing, this memoir is evdience for the old adage that truth is ofren stranger than fiction. Following the author's childhood and early adolescence, the story begins with the break-up of his parents' dysfunctional marriage, and chronicles his time living with the beyond-eccentric family of his mother's therapist. While not without its charms, by the end, the sheer weirdness of the author's life and experince begins to grow tiresome. (Finished November 20, 2016)
A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara) -- a stunning, beautiful and heart-wrenching story of four college friends and 30 years of their lives together in New York City; while very difficult to read at times for its unflinching depictions of abuse and its aftermath, the portrayal of love and friendship, rendered in subtle but eloquent prose, transcends even the darkest moments. A truly amazing work of fiction. (Finished November 13, 2016)
Lit Up! (David Denby) -- an inspiring (non-fiction) account of a reporter who spends a year in three different high school English classrooms; a sensitive, unflinching and often inspiring look at the challenges and victories in the fight to have teens be serious readers. (Finished October 9, 2016)
Homegoing (Yaa Gyasi) -- despite it's almost Hollywood-esque plot twist near the end, this was a consistently engaging story that traced the lives of two half-sister from Ghana--one a slave, one the wife of a slave trader--from the 1700's up to the present day. (Finished September 25, 2016)
One Story, One Song (Richard Wagamese) -- a thoughtful collection of short personal essays, covering a range of topics: the experience of First Nations in Canada, love, addiction, community, nature, helping others, writing and the meaning of home. (Finished September 16, 2016)
The Cave and the Light (Arthur Herman) -- a fascinating examination of the impact of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle from their own time up to the early 21st century; while well-written and well-researched, the author's personal religious and political biases prove to be a bit distracting in the later chapters. (Finished September 5, 2016)
Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? (Dave Eggers) -- as always, Eggers is not afraid to tackle unique stories and methods of storytelling; however, this novel, written only in dialogue between the characters, tries to touch on too many themes and social issues, while never fully exploring any in a meaningful and thorough way. (Finished August 21, 2016)
Why I Read (Wendy Lesser) -- a heartfelt and sincere pseudo-memoir about the author's lifelong passion for books and reading, yet likely not that engaging for readers who have not read the authors she cites as favourites. (Finished August 19, 2016)
I Wear the Black Hat (Chuck Klotserman) -- in typical Klosterman fashion, this is a laugh-out-loud funny read, yet one that is also well-reasoned and scathing in its criticism of how society selectively chooses who will (and will not) be considered "villains".
(Finished August 15, 2016)
(Finished August 15, 2016)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Caitlin Doughty) -- a funny, sad and thought-provoking memoir of a young woman who takes a job a crematorium immediately following her graduation from university; the author deftly weaves cultural anthropology, personal anecdote and social criticism into an engaging look at how Western society choose to deal with death and dying.
(Finished August 13, 206)
(Finished August 13, 206)
H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald) -- a heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful, memoir of a college professor who buys and trains a hawk following the tragic death of her father; an engaging look at the relationship between animals and people, and what each provides for the other. (Finished August 7, 2016)
Men We Reaped (Jesmyn Ward) -- an unflinching, heartbreaking memoir of an African-American women who loses five friends and family members in only four years; Ward subtly but clearly demonstrates how each man's death (all from different causes) reflect the extent to which white American holds the lives of Black men to have little value. (Finished July 31, 2016)
Fargo Rock City (Chuck Klosterman) -- part memoir, part cultural criticism, this fun and engaging work examines the role of 80s heavy metal in the life of the author. (Finished July 24, 2016)
The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann) -- a beautifully-written novel, but the emotional and intellectual pay-off is quite small, given the time and effort required to make it through all 700+ pages. (Finished June 19, 2016)
The High Mountains of Portugal (Yann Martel) -- a quirky, mostly engaging novel about a man who, following the death of his wife, buy a chimpanzee from an animal refuge and moves from Toronto to his family's village in Portugal. (Finished May 15, 2016)
Medicine Walk (Richard Wagamese) -- a touching novel about an absent father who, facing death, attempts to re-connected with his estranged son. (Finished May 1, 2016)
A Paradise Built in Hell (Rebecca Solnit) -- a fascinating examination of how communities band together in times of natural (and man-made) disasters, and the errors authorities make by always expecting the worst of people affected by tragedy. (Finished April 17, 2016)
A Brief History of Seven Killings (Marlon James) -- a stunning and staggering multi-voiced novel, set in Jamaica in the mid 1970s, and then in New York City in the 1980s and early 1990s; a difficult book in many respects, be it the authentic patois voice of several of the narrators, the multiple storylines, or the graphic violence, but so very, very worth the time and energy. (Finished April 3, 2016)
All Our Names (Dinaw Mengestu) -- a two-part story linked by one central character, charting his tumultuous, often tragic, life in Africa, and then in the United States in the 1960s; a fine book, weaving in elements of history, tragedy, love, family and hope. (Finished March 5, 2016)
Book by Book (Michael Dirda) -- a short but heartfelt ode to the role reading and books have played in the author's life, and how they can (maybe should) be a greater part of our lives in general. (Finished February 14, 2016)
The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton) -- a well-written, multi-narrative novel with intricate detail, historical research and complex characters, yet not entirely rewarding enough to warrant the time commitment its 900+ pages require. (Finished February 9, 2016)
Out of Our Heads (Alva Noe) -- an interesting--albeit somewhat repetitive--examination/critique of the notion that human consciousness can be solely linked to brain biology. (Finished January 8, 2016)
Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates) -- written as a letter to his teenage son--and a mere 150 pages in length--this brave and challenging partial-memoir shatters and re-constructs almost every pre-conceived notion we hold about race and race relations in the United States; a compelling and necessary book for our times. (Finished December 31, 2015)
Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham) -- a generally engaging, well-written classic, with a complex (though not always likeable or sympathetic) protagonist; the strongest moments are those when Carey has one of his many epiphanies about religion, art, love and life. (Finished December 29, 2015)
Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut) -- in typical Vonnegut fashion, this novel uses absurd plot details (e.g. physical movement and re-materialization, human invasion of Earth from Mars, space travel, aliens) to offer scathing commentary on the ills that plague social institutions, be it government or religion, as well as the many shortcomings of our interpersonal relationships with those around us. (Finished December 6, 2015)
Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) -- a well-written, and often--but not always--engaging story of a Nigerian immigrant to the United States who, after several failed relationships, academic and professional success as a blogger and speaker, decides to move back home; perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the story is how country of origin determines (for the most part) how one perceives and understands race, racial difference and racial prejudice. (Finished November 27, 015)
Runaway (Alice Munro) -- yet another brilliant collection of short fiction by a Canadian master of the genre; as the title suggests, each story deals with a character (or characters) trying to "escape" from something or someone, in many cases not realizing they are doing so. A close friend once said of Munro that she "can do no wrong"; after reading seven of her collections, I am inclined to agree. (Finished October 25, 2015)
Honor Girl (Maggie Thrash) -- a brutally honest and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny graphic memoir about a young teenage girl and her experiences of first (same sex) love at summer camp in the early 2000s; a very impressive debut work from a talent writer and illustrator. (Finished October 10, 2015)
We Are Not Ourselves (Matthew Thomas) -- an impressive debut novel that follows three generations in the lives of an Irish immigrant family in the Bronx; spanning several decades, the novel looks at the force and limitations of family influence, changing opinions on race and community diversity, the sacrifices made for those we love, and we move forward after loss. (Finished October 3, 2015)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (Sherman Alexie) -- an impressive--yet gritty and unflinchingly honest--debut short story collection that follows the lives of various members of the Spokane Indian Reservation; semi-autobiographical, Alexie presents his characters in a way that honors the brutal uniqueness of their situation, yet always makes them feel to the reader as universal in theirs hopes, fears and dreams. (Finished September 13, 2015)
Why Does the World Exist? (Jim Holt) -- using textual evidence, as well as in-person interviews, with scientists, philosophers, theologians, and even a novelist, the author attempts to address (and perhaps even answer) the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" While a fascinating read meant for a broad readership, even simplified explanations of quantum mechanics and ontological philosophy can leave the most close and attentive readers a bit confused...but in a good way. (Finished September 6, 2015)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie) -- a hilarious, and brutally unflinching, look at life on the Spokane Indian Reservation; based largely on the author's own experiences growing up, the novel examines our ties to family, community and culture, and looks at the risk we face when we choose to "abandon" our past(s) in order to improve our lives, or--in some cases--ensure our own survival. Written for young adults, this is a book that would be a valuable read for adults as well. (Finished, August 30, 2015)
Swamplandia! (Karen Russell) -- the first novel by the acclaimed short story writer follows the absurd adventures and struggles of a eccentric Florida family who must fight to keep each other safe while trying to save their family business: an alligator-wrestling theme park. While certainly odd and funny, Russell's novel packs a lot of heart as well. (Finished August 26, 2015)
The Martian (Andy Weir) -- a fun and simple story of survival, this novel (Weir's first) is a scientifically accurate adventure about an astronaut who is stranded on Mars and must figure out how to survive until help arrives. (Finished August 15, 2015)
The Flamethrowers (Rachel Kushner) -- a novel that takes geographic leaps--from Nevada, to New York City, to Italy and back again--while following the adventures of a young artists and aspiring filmmaker whose romantic choices disrupt her attempts to establish herself as an artists in the ever-fluctuating art world of 1970s New York. (August 8, 2015)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) -- while Gaiman is unquestionably a gifted writer with a vast imagination, this shot novel seemed to constantly tread the boundary between a children's story and adult fantasy, which--in the end--rendered not as engaging as it might have been. (July 24, 2015)
The Good Lord Bird (James McBride) -- a wacky-yet-moving fictionalization of an actual historical event: the (ultimately failed) attempt of an elderly abolitionist and his rag-tag group of followers to (violently) end slavery in pre-Civil War America; while laugh-out-loud funny at times, the novel also deftly illustrates the complexity of trying to elicit change in dangerous times. (Finished July 18, 2015)
The Back of the Turtle (Thomas King) -- while mostly engaging, King's newest novel seems at times a bit heavy-handed in (re)emphasizing his central themes, and lacking in the narrative wit of his earlier work, Green Grass, Running Water. (Finished July 4, 2015)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki (Haruki Murakami) -- a simple but moving story of a young train-station architect in Tokyo who is compelled to seek out the reason why his four best friends cut him out of their lives ten years ago. (Finished June 22, 2015)
The Flame Alphabet (Ben Marcus) -- working from the central narrative thread that children's words have suddenly become (slowly and painfully) fatal to adults, this quasi-dystopian novel leaves many questions--about its characters and its setting--unanswered, as it instead opts for a existential examination of love, family, parenthood, language, and the limitations of all of them. (Finished June 16, 2015)
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Karen Russell) -- the author's first book--published at the age of 25--contains an array of eccentric stories rife with magic realism, supernatural elements, and (if one reads closely) an honest look at the pains of growing up, the inevitable loss of childhood wonder and innocence, and how one's geography leaves an indelible mark on their identity. (Finished June 6, 2015)
The Captive and The Fugitive (Marcel Proust) -- the fifth volume of Proust's six-part opus In Search of Lost Time; like the others, dense passages of detail, meditations on the nature of love, loss and family, and very few periods. (Finished May 30, 2015)
Thinking Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) -- a fascinating look at how our brain "thinks" (metaphorically) in two very distinct ways, and how we often use one way when the other would be far more beneficial. (Finished April 24, 2015)
Player One (Douglas Coupland) -- while mostly engaging--and tackling typical Coupland themes such as identity, theology, Armageddon, and consumerism--the author has made the same points in far better narratives; not his strongest work. (Finished March 29, 2015)
Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl) -- a short but moving mix of Holocaust memoir and psychological theory, Frankl ads a spiritual angle to more traditional notions of existentialism, arguing that meaning is what drives our lives, and it can (indeed must) be both found and created. (Finished March 22, 2015)
Can't We Talk About Something more Pleasant? (Roz Chast) -- a touching and blunt graphic novel-memoir about dealing with aging and dying parents; though sad, Chast's family story is infused with moments of humour and hope. (Finished March 18, 2015)
The Strange Library (Haruki Murakami) -- a short (able to be read in one sitting) tale of a young boy's adventure's in the basement of his local library; simple, frightening, and clearly allegorical, it will leave readers bewitched, amused and/or frustrated. (Finished March 17, 2015)
Bark (Lorrie Moore) -- an impressive collection of short stories, all with flawed-yet-believable female protagonists wrestling with the complexities of life, love, work, and family. (Finished March 16, 2015)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Flannagan) -- a stunningly poetic, yet brutally graphic, story of an Australian soldier in a Japanese POW camp during WWII; a thoughtful meditation on life, purpose, meaning, love, family, survival, war, and memory. (Finished March 9, 2015)
The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life (Robert Trivers) -- a fascinating evolutionary biological examination of the role of deceit in self-deception in our day-to-day lives. (Finished February 12, 2015)
White Girls (Hilton Als) -- in this engaging essay collection, Als, a cultural critic for the New York Times, addresses issues of race, class, sexuality, fashion, fame, and pop culture with a fearlessly critical eye, but also with a great deal of heart; while graphic and intense at times, this is a fine collection. (Finished January 26, 2015)
All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr) -- while some may find the story a tad sentimental, this is an engaging multi-narrative novel about war, love, sacrifice, and the power of knowledge and forgiveness. (Finished January 12, 2015)
Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel) -- a wonderful premise (a flu pandemic wipes out 99% of the world's population, and 20 years later a group of musicians and actors roam the country performing Shakespeare) with vividly-drawn characters whose lives intertwine and eventually converge in the past, present and (eventual) future. (Finished December 30, 2014)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Karen Joy Fowler) -- a generally engaging story about a young girl raised with a chimpanzee as part of a psychological study, and the long-lasting impacts for the entire family; well-written, though one gets the sense that the author, at times, uses her novel as an opportunity to share her views on animal experimentation for scientific research. (Finished December 24, 2014)
Netherland (Joseph O'Neill) -- an occasionally engaging story of a South African stock broker who befriends a group of fellow ex-pats from around the world who play cricket in and around New York City, while at the same time trying to heal a broken marriage. (Finished December 14, 2014)
The Enchanted (Rene Denfeld) -- a heart-wrenching and yet poetic novel that examines the lives of prisoners on death row, the warden, priest and guards who watch them, and an investigator who tries to get their executions reversed. Not an easy read for the overly-sensitive, but powerful. (Finished December 1, 2014)
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (Paul Bloom) -- a fascinating and accessible examination of where our sense of morality really comes from, looking at everything from neuroscience, development psychology, sociology and anthropology. (Finished November 28, 2014)
Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout) -- a unique structure and a very memorable (though not always likable) title character; arranged as a series of short stories--all set in the same small town in Maine--the titular Olive appears in ever story, sometimes as the central character, sometimes only as a passerby. Taken alone or together, the stories poignantly address family, love, loss and aging. (Finished November 20, 2014)
Sodom and Gomorrah (Marcel Proust) -- despite the racy title, the fourth installment of Proust's six-book In Search of Lost Time is much the same as the first four: love, family, upper-class French society, and very long sentences. The prose is stunning, but decidedly more so in the scenes about love and family, and not so much dinner parties. (Finished November 9, 2014)
Black Swan Green (David Mitchell) -- a significant departure in terms of theme and plot complexity from his other works (like Cloud Atlas), this semi-autobiographical novel about a 13 year-old boy growing up in a small town in England in 1982 is both highly readable and consistently enjoyable. (Finished October4, 2014)
The Winter of Our Discontent (John Steinbeck) -- while not up to the brilliance of East of Eden or The Grapes of Wrath, this is nevertheless a thoughtful and tragic meditation on poverty, power, family and hope. (Finished September 26, 2014)
The Insufferable Gaucho (Roberto Bolano) -- in typical Bolano fashion, these seemingly straightforward short stories always leave one feeling that there is something hidden beneath the surface that is just out of sight, be they tales of violence, despair, love or redemption. (Finished September 20, 2014)
Telegraph Avenue (Michael Chabon) --while not equal to Chabon's best work (Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), this is still an enjoyable story of a small, independent record store in Berkley, CA trying to stay afloat, while a colourful cast of characters make the lives of the two owners more than challenging along the way. (Finished September 14, 2014)
Absalom, Absalom! (William Faulkner) -- a dense, poetic and often frustrating tale of one mysterious family in small-town Mississippi, spanning the years from the 1830s and ending in 1909. (Finished September 6, 2014)
The Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking (Olivia Laing) -- part research, part road trip, and part memoir, this is a fascinating look at the role of alcohol (and alcoholism) in the personal and professional lives of Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, John Berryman, and Raymond Carver. (Finished August 28, 2014)
The Residue Years (Mitchell Jackson) -- a stunning debut novel that chronicles the lives of the members of an African-American family in Portland who must struggle with drugs, violence, and loss, and yet still cling to hope for a better life. (Finished August 22, 2014)
Brother, I'm Dying (Edwidge Danticat) -- this powerful, heartbreaking memoir traces the lives and experiences of one Haitian family's struggles at home, and immigrating to the United States, with brutal honesty and a lot of heart. (Finished August 16, 2014)
Dear American Airlines (Jonathan Miles) -- while flawed in some places (most notable the end), this creative first novel--written in the form of a letter to American Airlines by a disgruntled passenger stranded at an airport, but shifts frequently into the narrator's life story--is still a unique and enjoyable quick read. (Finished August 12, 2014)
The Last Picture Show (Larry McMurtry) -- while likely very accurate in capturing life in small-town America in the 1950s--and with some memorable characters--McMurty's novel is also likely too dated to be engaging for readers under the age of 40 today. (Finished August 7, 2014)
Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut) -- one of KV's later works, written as the autobiography of a formerly famous painter, is an amusing exploration of family, history, art and war; not Vonnegut's best, but still very entertaining. (Finished August 3, 2014)
Cockroach (Rawi Hage) -- while there was potential--stylistically and narratively--in this novel about an Iranian immigrant living in Montreal, in the end it was both dull and predictable. (Finished July 31, 2014)
The Circle (Dave Eggers) -- a novel set in the (very) near future about a massive company (an amalgam of Microsoft, Apple and Google) that has aspirations that are both ambitious and noble, as well as sweeping and chilling in their scope; while a tad predictable--and perhaps a bit heavy-handed in its moralizing--Eggers' novel is nevertheless a thoughtful and engaging meditation on what it means to be human in a world obsessed with technology. (Finished July 27, 2014)
Dear Life (Alice Munro) -- a Munro short story collection is always a pleasure to read, and this is no different: deep, introspective themes, complex characterization, and endings that always leave the reader pondering some elusive narrative questions. (Finished July 22, 2014)
The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer) -- a slightly flawed, sometimes predictable, but still very readable and fun story of the lives of six friends, from their meeting in 1974 at a fine arts camp, to their adult lives in the present day. (Finished July 17, 2014)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot) -- a fascinating and engaging look at the "immortal" cancer cells of black cancer patient in the 1950s, harvested and used for research without her--or her family's--knowledge; touching on issues of race, class, and bio-medical ethics, this is "science writing" at its best. (Finished July 10, 2014)
Enon (Paul Harding) -- the follow-up to Harding's excellent--and Pulitzer-winning--novel "Tinkers"; tracing the year following the accidental death of the narrator's daughter, Harding explores the many facets of grief, history and memory with sincere emotion, never sliding into false sentimentality or emotional manipulation. (Finished July 6, 2014)
The Known World (Edward P. Jones) -- an excellent, subtly complex novel that examines a little-known aspect of American history, namely the ownership of slaves by former (now "free") slaves. (Finished July 4, 2014)
Interpreter of Maladies (Juhmpa Lahiri) -- a fine short story collection that focuses on the lives of Indian-Americans, both those from India who immigrate to the United States, and those of Indian decent who are born in America but still rooted to the homeland of their family. (Finished June 28, 2014)
The Empathy Exams (Leslie Jamison) -- a deeply engaging--and deeply personal--collection that proves that the essay is not a dead literary genre, nor one confined to academia. (Finished June 26, 2014)
Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls (David Sedaris) -- a typical Sedaris narrative essay collection, and possibly his best yet: razor-sharp wit and a subtle heart will have you laughing out loud and thinking deeply, often at the same time. (Finished June 19, 2014)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Anthony Marra) -- an impressive debut novel that offers a poetically detailed--yet often brutally graphic--tale of several lives that all come together during the conflict(s) in Chechnya in the late 1990s and early 2000s. (Finished June 15, 2014)
This One Summer (Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki) -- a fine graphic novel that honestly captures the harsh realities of life when two (early) adolescent friends find themselves thrust into the personal dramas of some local, older teens as well as their own families. (Finished June 2, 2014)
Skim (Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki) -- at a scant 143 pages, this graphic novel is very easy to read in one sitting; bravely addressing themes of adolescent angst, depression, schooling, sex, drugs and suicide--while not sacrificing wry humour--the Tamaki sisters have made a story set in the late 1980s equally relevant for the youth of today. (Finished June 1, 2014)
The Son (Philipp Meyer) -- a sweeping epic that follows several generations of a Texas family from the late 1800s to 2011; examining pride, greed, power, money, family, love and memory with consistently engaging prose makes all 560 pages go very quickly. (Finished June 1, 2014)
Hellgoing (Lynn Coady) -- while every story in this collection is well-written, and has great potential in terms of character and theme, Coady's penchant for abrupt and (overly) indeterminate ending will likely leave many readers frustrated. (Finished May 22, 2014)
Vampires in the Lemon Grove (Karen Russell) -- an eccentric mix of plots and characters, this short story collection reads (stylistically and thematically) like a blend of George Saunders, Dave Eggers and Stephen King; overall, quite entertaining. (Finished May 19, 2014)
Indian Horse (Richard Wagamese) -- a short and accessible novel about a Native man coming to terms with his childhood in a residential school and his adolescence playing hockey; while Wagamese is blunt at times in his descriptions of life at residential schools, at others he seems to be holding back, which--unfortunately--doesn't allow his characters or plot to develop to the extent that they might have had his book been longer. (Finished May 16, 2014)
Tenth of December (George Saunders) -- an excellent collection of short stories; don't let the shortness or readability fool you: Saunders probes many deep topics, from teen angst, to PTSD, to income inequality, to the value of real emotions--and gives the reader credit for his/her own perspective by offering no stereotyped characters or easy answers to the problems he examines. (Finished May 13, 2014)
The Guermantes Way (Marcel Proust) -- volume three is the longest--and so far slowest--of the series; while there are moments of beautiful prose, this installment lacks the wistful memories of childhood from Volume One, and the longings of first love in Volume Two. (Finished May 7, 2014)
How Literature Saved My Life (David Shields) -- while there are frequently thoughtful insights into human nature, this "collage" of memories, anecdotes, books lists, conversations and digressions will likely frustrate those who desire a more simple structure to their writing. (Finished April 18, 2014)
Open City (Teju Cole) -- a fairly impressive debut novel; while there is no "plot" to speak of, and the narrator is frequently enigmatic in his attitudes and motivations, it offers an interesting meditation on an extensive number of topics (place, home, culture, love, family, death, and much more), and how they are all connected on levels we rarely see. (Finished April 16, 2014)
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North American (Thomas King) -- a scathingly brilliant, unsettling--and yet very funny--part history, part biography of the history between European settlers and Native people, from first contact to present day; a very important book, and an excellent companion to King's The Truth About Stories. (Finished April 10, 2014)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Joan Didion) -- a poetic, though often overly detailed, collection of narrative essays about the author's encounters with various animals in the woods near her home. (Finished April 5, 2014)
Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett) -- perhaps the definitive existential play of the 20th century: funny, sad, and just plain odd. You won't "get" it. Read it anyway. (Finished March 23, 2014)
Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (Elizabeth Winder) -- although a bit gimmicky in its structure and layout of chapters, the information contained here is almost required reading for anyone who has read (and connected in some way with) Plath's novel, The Bell Jar. (Finished March 22, 2014)
Geek Love (Katherine Dunn) -- a dark, twisted, funny, graphic--yet oddly compelling--story about a family of circus freaks. (Finished March 18, 2014)
The Orenda (Joseph Boyden) -- a beautifully written--yet graphically violent--examination of the early encounters of European missionaries and Canad's First Nations; the story offers no easy answers to the complex and troubled history between the two groups, but succeeds in forcing the reader to recognize how we can be, at the same time, very different from one another and more alike than we know. (Finished March 12, 2014)
Canada (Richard Ford) -- an generally engaging book, though far from brilliant or original, about a boy who leaves his home to live and work with strangers after his parents are arrested for robbing a bank. (Finished March 3, 2014)
Phantoms on the Bookshelves (Jacques Bonnet) -- a sincere--but ultimately unsatisfying--personal and anecdotal look at excessive personal book collecting; Alberto Manguel and Nicholas Basbanes have written more (and better) works on the subject. (Finished February 22, 2014)
The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt) -- at 771 pages, it's hard to imagine that (perhaps) Tartt tries to cram too many things (characters, themes, plot) into one book; beautifully written, though suffers (albeit only in places) from lack of believability and inconsistent characterization. (Finished February 19, 2014)
Harvest (Jim Crace) -- a curious book: simple yet engaging prose, wonderful suspense, clearly allegorical, yet somewhat unsatisfying in its conclusion. Still, at only 208 pages, it is worth the few hours it will take to read it. (Finished February 5, 2014)
Why Lyrics Last: Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare's Sonnets (Brian Boyd) -- a fascinating and passionate theory about how Shakespeare's sonnets can be understood through the lens of recent scientific discoveries in human cognition.
(Finished January 29, 2014)
(Finished January 29, 2014)
Within A Budding Grove (Marcel Proust) -- volume two of Proust's six-volume opus is--stylistically, at least--very much like the first; our narrator is older, and not much wiser or mature, but he is beginning to understand the complexity of people and his relationship to (and with) them. (Finished January 22, 2014)
Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times (Andrew Piper) -- a short but engaging read that examines the relationship between books and their history with the advancements in technology over the past 30+ years. (Finished January 3, 2014)
Swann's Way (Marcel Proust) -- volume one of Proust's six-volume opus is an experience like no other, and not for those looking for an "easy read"; there are many, many long, detailed digressions, and some of the longest sentences you will find anywhere in literature, but the beauty of the prose is reason enough to (begin to) tackle this beast of a masterpiece. (Finished January 1, 2014)
A Splendor of Letters (Nicholas Basbanes) -- while a bit dated in its references to e-readers (it was published in 2004), this is a fitting end to Basbanes' trilogy on all things books: printers, readers, publishers, keepers, buyers, sellers, stealers and fanatics. (Finished December 22, 2013)
Last Evenings on Earth (Robert Bolano) -- addressing themes of diplacement, with charcters searching for (or running from) something even they cannot define, Bolano's stories, while engaging, will frustrate readers who seek closure in their short fiction. (Finished December 8, 2013)
White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Collected Poems (Donald Hall) -- a beautiful--and, at times, utterly heartbreaking--collection by a brilliant contemporary poet. (Finished December 6, 2013)
The Cat's Table (Michael Ondaatje) -- an enjoyable read about a young boy travelling alone from Ceylon to England in the early 1950s; a thoughtful meditation of friendship, love, memory and loss. (Finished November 30, 2013)
This is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz) -- like his first short story collection Drown, this, too, is filled with flawed--some slightly, some deeply--characters and gritty realism; while two or three of the stories are quite compelling, the repetition of the same themes and character types does make one wish, at times, for a little more variety. (Finished November 23, 2013)
Empathy and the Novel (Suzanne Keen) -- a fascinating and even-handed examination of the scientific and social evidence for (and a little against) the notion that reading fiction fosters empathy. (Finished November 17, 2013)
Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read (Stanislas Dehaene) -- a thorough re-cap of recent neuroscience and what it has taught about what happens in our brains when we read; while interesting, those who do not care for extensive scientific jargon may find parts a bit slow. (Finished November 4, 2013)
2666 (Roberto Bolano) -- this is a book that demands both time and patience (900 pages = 4-6 weeks); it is not a plot-driven novel, and it is not one that ties up all (or any) loose ends; it is a dense, multi-narrative experience, and while I can not say (an hour after finishing it) that I "liked" it yet, I know that I am glad I read it. (Finished October 20, 2013)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (Alice Munro) -- a typical Munro collection: beautifully written, real (but not always likeable) characters, and reflections on love, family, loss and forgiveness. (Finished September 7, 2013)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" (Alice Munro) -- a typical Munro collection: beautifully written, real (but not always likeable) characters, and reflections on love, family, loss and forgiveness. (Finished September 7, 2013)
Small Memories (Jose Saramago) -- while Saramago has a wonderful eye for detail, the rambling, conversational style of this literary memoir falls short in terms of consistent engagement. (Finished August 31, 2013)
Of Love and Other Demons (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) -- a short (147-page) novel laden with typical Marquez detail and characters: poetic, funny, sad, and thoughtful. (Finished August 27, 2013)
Famous Last Words (Timothy Findley) -- a labyrinthine novel, full of history, espionage, love, literature, politics, corruption and humanity. (Finished August 25, 2013)
How to Read the Air (Dinaw Mengestu) -- an impressive second novel from this young Ethiopian-American writer; well-drawn characters (all of whom are flawed), and an unflinching look at how and why relationships end, and how our pasts define us. (Finished August 20, 2013)
Truth and Bright Water (Thomas King) -- a brutally honest--yet very funny--book about life on a Native reservation on the Canada-U.S. border; not as solid as King's wonderful Green Grass, Running Water, but entertaining and thoughtful nevertheless. (Finished August 17, 2013)
Lemon (Cordelia Strube) -- a gritty and unflinching look at the ugly side of adolescence. Strube pulls no punches here, with explicit descriptions of sex and violence, but also allows glimmers of humanity to infiltrate the darkness; however, many of the narrator's comments on the endless social ills of the world sound more like the voice of the author than the character. (Finished August 14, 2013)
A History of God (Karen Armstrong) -- despite its title, this is not a work of theology, but rather a combination of history, sociology and anthropology; meticulously researched and well-written, Armstrong clearly traces the evolution of the concept of "God" in the three major world religions since their earliest beginnings. This should be required reading for anyone who has an interest in--or personally practices--any branch of Christianity, Judaism or Islam.
Downtown Owl (Chuck Klosterman) -- I have been a fan of Klosterman's non-fiction work for years, and his debut novel is fun and entertaining, with some wry insights into small town life and the vagaries of circumstance. (Finished August 1, 2013)
Eleanor Rigby (Douglas Coupland) -- while not Coupland's best work (I would give that honour to The Gum Thief), this is nevertheless an easy and fun read in typical Coupland style, full of irony, wry obervations, and the randomness that somehow gives our lives a sense of purpose. (Finished July 27, 2013)
On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan) -- a stylistically sound short novel that perhaps attempts to cover too many themes (marriage, history, class, sexuality, regret, love, music and family) in a scant 162 pages. (Finished July 22. 2013)
Townie (Andrew Dubus III) -- a gritty, unflinching and evocative look at an impoverished childhood, the necessity and futility of violence, and the unshakeable bonds of family. (Finished July 20, 2013)
The Waves (Virginia Woolf) -- a challenging but beautiful novel that traces the lives of six friends, from childhood to adulthood; while the plot may be difficult to follow at times (nothing but first-person stream-of-consciousness for all six characters), the prose is nothing short of stunning. (Finished July 12, 2013)
A Hologram for the King (Dave Eggers) -- a fast, sometimes engaging, read about an aging American businessman hoping to score a lucrative business deal in Saudi Arabia; while not without its flaws, it works as a thoughtful parable about feeling "lost" when everything--work, family, relationships, the economy, your health--is uncertain. (Finished July 7, 2013)
The Self-Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity (Bruce Hood) -- an engaging and accessible introduction to many aspect of modern neuroscience, well-supported and well-written. (Finished July 5, 2013)
The Good Soldier (Ford Maddox Ford) -- a deceptively simple but engaging modernist narrative about love and loss and the emotional emptiness of the upper classes at the turn of the 20th century. (Finished June 28, 2013)
Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and The Conquest of Everest (Wade Davis) -- a long, at times heavily-detailed, account of the first attempts to climb Mount Everest by veterans of World War I; an engrossing story of history, adventure, and the tragedy that often accompanies obsession. (Finished June 17, 2013)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) -- a second read in 20 years; amazed at how much I remembered and how much I had forgotten. Still a timeless classic, in the Top 5 Greatest Books of the 20th Century. (Finished May 10, 2013)
Clear Skies, No Rain, 100% Visibility (Theodora Armstrong) -- an impressive debut of short stories from a local Vancouver writer; a range of protagonists (adults to teens to kids) facing all manner of internal and external conflicts. (Finished May 5, 2013)
Cognitive Science, Literature and the Arts: A Guide for Humanists (Patrick Hogan) -- at times interesting, but--for anyone even slightly familiar with recent research in cognitive science--a bit dated (published in 2003) and dry. There are better books out there on the same subject matter.
The Sentimentalists (Johanna Skibsrud) -- an decent first novel, with engaging prose and well-drawn characters, but the abrupt ending left the book feeling a little incomplete. (Finished April 7, 2013)
Half-Blood Blues (Esi Edugyan) -- an interesting--though slightly flawed--story of the confluence of jazz, African Americans, and friendship in WWII Germany and France. (Finished March 31, 2013)
The Tender Bar (J.R. Moehringer) -- a wonderful memoir about childhood, family, love, loss, identity, and--most importantly--the people and places that shape who we become. (Finished March 25, 2013)
In Parenthesis (David Jones) -- despite the groundbreaking prose style of this post-modern WWI novel, I did not find the substance as engaging as I had hoped. (Finished March 17, 2013)
The History of Love (Nicole Krauss) -- an enjoyable enough read about multiple lives lived in multiple places and decades linked together through love, loss and a story. (Finished March 9, 2013)
How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Paul John Eakin) -- a fascinating examination of the cognitive science, literary theory and philosophy behind the notion of "self" and autobiography (or "life writing"). (Finished February 17, 2013)
Patience and Fortitude (Nicholas A. Basbanes) -- the second book in Basbanes' trilogy on all things books: collecting, publishing, hunting, hoarding, and more; some interesting historical and personal anecdotes, but a bit dry in places. (Finished February 11, 2013)
And So it Goes - Kurt Vonnegut: A Life (Charles J. Shields) -- an honest, unflinching look at one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, highlighting his humour and accomplishments, as well as his many failings in both his personal and professional life. (Finished January 13, 2013)
The Marriage Plot (Jeffrey Eugenides) -- while not quite up to par with his previous (and brilliant) book, Middlesex, and perhaps more relatable for those who have finished at least one degree in university, this is nevertheless and entertaining and engaging read, dealing with both the amusing absurdities and painful realities of life. (Finished January 4, 2013)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) -- a t 817 pages, one could easily be intimidated by this tome, but the well-drawn (albeit most not very sympathetic or likeable) characters and range of themes (love, social inequality, religion/faith, family, politics) made it hard to put this one down. (Finished December 30, 2012)
On the Road (Jack Kerouac) -- second read; still possesses the vitality of a first read, but what is evident now (and what I missed the first time) is the pathos and tragedy woven in with the tales of a seemingly insatiable lust for life. (Finished November 25, 2012)
Stop-Time (Frank Conroy) -- a strikingly honest memoir about growing up with a semi-dysfunctional family in Florida and New York in the 1940s and 50s; while the author may not always come across as the most likeable person, one must nevertheless appreciate his blunt honesty about himself and his experiences. (Finished October 28, 2012)
The Tell-Tale Brain (V.S. Ramachandran) -- a fascinating look at what advances in modern cognitive neuroscience can teach us about identity, memory, art and--to use the author's term--all that makes us human. (Finished October 8, 2012)
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Jeanette Winterson) -- a moving memoir about an adopted girl surviving a difficult childhood with a fanatically religious (as well as depressed and delusion) adoptive mother in 1960s-70s working-class England; Winterson meditates how and why we survive difficult times, where and when our sense of identity is first formed, and how books can save one from despair. (Finished September 16, 2012)
I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World (James Geary) -- a fascinating look at how figurative language is present in all aspects of our lives--science, art, business, relationships, politics--and helps us define both our world and our identity. (Finished September 12, 2012)
This is Not the End of the Book (Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere) -- composed of transcripts of multiple conversations between Eco an Carriere, topics range from old books, new books, rare books, e-books, libraries, collectors and collections, and much, much more; some parts will likely interest some people more than other parts, but overall an enjoyable read for any lover of books and reading. (Finished September 3, 2012)
Model Home (Eric Puchner) -- an impressive debut novel, set in the mid-1980s, which captures the anxiety of economic crisis for upper-middle-class American families (still very relevant today) and the complexity of familial relationships. (Finished August 31, 2012)
Small Beneath the Sky (Lorna Crozier) -- a short and beautifully lyric memoir of growing up in rural Saskatchewan; Crozier's skill as a poet is evident in her eye for detail, both physical and emotional. (Finished August 23, 2012)
The Event of Literature (Terry Eagleton) -- a dense yest insightful work on the nature of what constitutes "lietrature" and "literary theory"; will be virtually incomprehensible to those without some kind of familiarity with the basic strands of literary theory. (Finished August 21, 2012)
Eating the Dinosaur (Chuck Klosterman) -- typical Klosterman: a dryly funny, ironic, and unexpectedly insightful collection of essays on music, sports, and numerous other pop culture phenomena, though the majority of references will be unfamiliar to most readers under the age of 35. (Finished August 13, 2012)
Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami) -- my first experience with Murakami, with what is considered to be his most accessible work. On the surface, a simple love story, but hidden beneath the surface are subtle observations on family, loss, friendship and the universal need for human connection. (Finished August 12, 2012)
The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls) -- an engaging and easy-to-read memoir that has the ability to amuse, anger, frustrate and make us think about our notions of love and family. (Finished August 9, 2012)
Ham on Rye (Charles Bukowski) -- a gritty, unflinching (and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny) autobiographical novel of the "poet laureate of skid row", set in Depression-era Los Angeles. (Finsihed August 4, 2012)
My Father's Tears and Other Stories (John Updike) -- this collection of stories was released after Updike's death in 2009; perhaps it was because they were his last, but the characters, themes and settings seemed very redundant. Not a bad collection, but not brilliant or engaging either. (Finished July 7, 2012)
The Sense of An Ending (Julian Barnes) -- a short and easy read with a likeable enough narrator and some interesting musings on time and memory, but a silly and predictable ending all but ruins what is otherwise a very fine book. (Finished June 25, 2012)
The Anatomy of Influence (Harold Bloom) -- an impassioned--and likely final--book about the role of imaginative literature in our lives, by one of the most influnetial literary critics of the last 50+ years. (Finished June 24, 2012)
Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon) -- a brilliant but frustratingly dense and complex novel; tinged with moments of, well, almost everything, this is book that requires some degree of pre-reading (i.e. introduction and/or study guide) if one hopes to get even the slightest glimmer of comprehension. While it would undoubtedly improve on re-reading(s), I do not know that I have the patience to undertake such a task. (Finished May 21, 2012)
Poetry As Survival (Gregory Orr) -- an impassioned and thoughtful treatise on the value of lyric poetry, and its potential to help people who have suffered emotional, psychological and/or physical trauma. (Finished April 7, 2012)
One More Theory About Happiness (Paul Guest) -- a moving memoir about a boy who is paralyzed at the age of 12 after a bike accident, and chronicles his physical, emotional and psychological recovery, and the new life he finds for himself as a poet. (Finished March 30, 2012)
The Other Walk: Essays (Sven Birkerts) -- Birkerts is a fine literary critic and passionate fan of books and reading, and while there are moments of great emotion and insight in this collction of (very) brief "musings", the randomness of the order and frequent abrupt endings distract from what is otherwise an interesting collection. (Finished March 28, 2012)
Daytripper (Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba) -- a stunningly beautiful graphic novel about a man who gets to re-live each of the happiest days of his life; a thoughtful musing on love, family, choice, death, and the small moments that change the course of our livs. (Finished March 27, 2012)
Too Much Happiness: Stories (Alice Munro) -- like all short story collections (regardless of author), some are stronger than others, and this one is no different; nevertheless, Munro has (again) crafted narratives that get at the core of what it means to be human, and the complexities of family, friendship, love and regret. (Finished March 26, 2012)
Collected Essays (E.B. White) -- arguably the best essayist of the 20th century; from major issues like politics and the environment, to little things like hobbies and animals, whether written in 1923 or 1960, White's voice still resonates today. (Finished March 21, 2012)
How to Write A Sentence (Stanley Fish) -- small but passionate book (part essay, part "how-to" guide) on the beauty of a finely crafted sentence; a good read for those who enjoy writing themselves, or just enjoy reading quality writing. (Finished March 20, 2012)
The Sisters Brothers (Patrick DeWitt) -- an engaging and very readable novel set in the time of the Gold Rush in California; dealing with family, revenge, greed, and redemption, the novel is at once both dark and violent, and (at times) funny and moving. (Finished March 17, 2012)
The Winter Vault (Anne Michaels) -- a beautifully described and thoughtful novel on how people are bound in mind, body and spirit to physical objects and places; not as moving or as powerful as her previous work, Fugitive Pieces, but still quite good. (Finished March 5, 2012)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer) -- a creative and engaging story (though a tad predictable at times) of a young boy coming to terms with losing his father, who died on 9/11. (Finished Feb.18, 2012)
Pulphead: Essays (John Jeremiah Sullivan) -- a curious mix of essays, with topics ranging from rock music, archeology, religion, animals and mentorship; Sullivan has an engaging style and voice, reminiscient of Chuck Klosterman. (Finished Feb.5, 2012)
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes) -- after six weeks and 940 pages, I can say that I am impressed, but was not consistently engaged; it is obvious that this was a groundbreaking and "game-changing" work of literature, but one can only handle so much irony, no matter how brilliant it may be. (Finished Jan.22, 2012)
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Alison Bechdel) -- as the sub-title implies, this graphic memoir of a young lesbian girl coming to terms with her childhood--and her strained relationship with her stern (and closeted) father, who (perhaps?) takes his own life when she is twenty--is both humourous and sad, and is told (rightly so) in a tone both resentful and tender. (Finished Dec.11, 2011)
Monoceros (Suzette Mayr) -- an interesting--though at times a little too unrealistic--novel about the staff and students of a Catholic high school in Calgary coping with the suicide of a gay student. (Finished Dec.10, 2011)
The Undertaking (Thomas Lynch) -- a heartfelt and fascinating memoir by a man who is not only an accomplished poet, but has also been the only funeral director in his small hometown for 35 years; a good read for those interested in (perhaps) a different perspective on death and grieving in our society. (Finished Nov.23, 2011)
Black Hole (Charles Burns) -- a stunning (and, at times, unsettling) graphic novel; set in Seattle in the 1970s, it follows a group of teens infected by a mysterious STD, known only as "the bug". Dealing with themes of angst, family, frienship, drug abuse, sexuality, isolation and identity, it is a brilliant example of what the graphic novel genre is capable of. (Finished Nov.13, 2011)
Native Son (Richard Wright) -- despite having one of the least sympathetic protagonists in 20th Century American literature, Wright's novel is essential reading for anyone wishing to have a greater insight into the experience(s) of African-Americans in the early decades of the 1900s. (Finished Nov.5, 2011)
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (Jane Smiley) -- while the author's observations are insightful and interesting for avid readers of imaginative fiction, her choice to use 100 randomly selected novels as support for her ideas will likely leave many readers who are unfamiliar with the books feeling alienated. (Finished Sept.29, 2011)
Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (Billy Collins) -- my first introduction to Collins, and I was very impressed: simple verse, often humourous, never too long, but infused with depth and insights into the seemingly mundane, day-to-day lives of average people. (Finished Sept.18, 2011)
The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in A Distracted Time (David L. Ulin) -- a mixture of personal anecdote and formal resreach, and more of a long essay than a book (there are no chapters or sections), this is a intriguing and heartfelt look at the (very important) role books and reading play in our technological age. (Finished Sept.3, 2011)
Saturday (Ian McEwan) -- an interesting look at middle-age, politics, wealth, family and violence, but for all its good points, it still falls short of the brilliance McEwan achieved in Atonement. (Finished Sept.1, 2011)
Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer) -- a mildy-challenging yet totally engrossing novel about a man searching for the woman who saved his grandfather's life during WWII; at times laugh-out-loud funny, and at others very difficult to read, it is nevertheless a very impressive first novel. (Finished Aug.28, 2011)
The Memoir and the Memoirist: Reading and Writing Personal Narrative (Thomas Larson) -- an excellent collection of reviews of memoirs and "how-to" suggestions for readers thinking about writing about their lives. (Finished Aug.22, 2011)
A Visit From the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan) -- it took me a few chapters to really get into this one, but it turned out to be a very engaging novel; told in multiple narrative voices-and spanning several decades-the story examines themes of place, memory, identity and music; this recent Pulitzer Prize-winner is entertaining on the surface, yet deep and thoughtful between the lines and beyond the plot. (Finished Aug.15, 2011)
Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (Terry Eagleton) -- an interesting series of lectures by a Marxist who attemtps to find meaningful (and rational) comm0n ground between atheism and religion. (Finished Aug.11, 2011)
The Sound and The Fury (William Faulkner) -- a maddeningly complex yet brilliant novel; will challenge and frustrate all but the most patient of readers, but the pay-off is worth it. (Finished Aug.9, 2011)
Collected Poems (Philip Larkin) -- simply brilliant; an absolute must-read for any lover (or even just casual reader) of poetry. (Finished August 3, 2011)
Miss Lonelyhearts (Nathanial West) -- at only 58 pages, and penned in 1933, this novel is as relevant as it is dark and unsettling in its commentary on American religiosity and violence. (Finished Aug.3, 2011)
The Blessing (Gregory Orr) -- a powerful and poetic memoir about a young boy who must cope with multiple losses in his life, but is able to find hope and purpose in writing. (Finished Aug.1, 2011)
Big Sur (Jack Kerouac) -- a heartfelt-and heartbreaking-autobiographical novel about Kerouac's struggle with his sudden rise to fame following the success of On the Road. (Finished July 30, 2011)
Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories (Thomas Mann) -- a strong collection of stories--some much stronger than others--whose detail(s) and characters resemble those found in the stories of Chekhov and Nabokov. (Finished July 26, 2011)
Half A Life (Darin Strauss) -- a heartbreaking yet poetic memoir about a young man, who, at 18, hits and kills a classmate with his car; while he is absolved of any fault in the accident, he carries the guilt of that day with him for almost two decades, and only through marriage, fatherhood, and writing is he finally able to confront his past. (Finished July 13, 2011)
The Love of A Good Woman (Alice Munro) -- a stunning collection of long(er) short stories by one of Canada's literary icons; not one for foreshadowing or tying up loose ends, Munro challenge readers to accept that fact that there are some things we will never know for certain, either in fiction or in life. (Finished July 10, 2011)
The Gum Thief (Douglas Coupland) -- a wonderful book about a 40-something man and a 20-something girl who become unlikely friends while working at Staples; funny, philosophical, sad, and (in its own unique way) hopeful. (Finished June 28, 2011)
The Liars' Club (Mary Karr) -- a funny, sad, and ultimately hopeful memoir of an almost-unbelievable childhood. (Finished June 26, 2011)
The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene) -- an engaging story of a disgraced priest on the run from government soldiers in 1930's Mexico. (Finished June 23, 2011)
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Nicholas Carr) -- a thought provoking--and, at times, disturbing--look at how the use of technology changes the structure of our brains. (Finished June 20, 2011)
Generation A (Douglas Coupland) -- an entertaining and thoughtful multi-voiced novel, covering everything from reading, the environment, drugs, philosophy, science, love, and some uncomfortable qustions about where we could be headed as a species. (Finished June 12, 2011)
Beatrice and Virgil (Yann Martel) -- a curious short novel by the author of the brilliant Life of Pi that questions how we can tell stories about the Holocaust; while a noble effort on the part of the author to attempt something different, and not without moments of insight and brilliance, overall it is a weak and confusing ending that all but ruins what could have been a provocative book. (Finished June 5, 2011)
An Open Book: Chapters From A Reader's Life (Michael Dirda) -- an enjoyable memoir of a man whose childhood, like mine, was defined by books and reading. (Finished May 29, 2011)
Unless it Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing (Roger Rosenblatt) -- a short, funny, and honest memoir of one year in a Creative Writing MFA course; full of amusing and touching personal anecdotes, samples of student writing, and Rosenblatt's own lessons about the craft of writing. (Finished May 22, 2011)
Making Toast: A Family Story (Roger Rosenblatt) -- a short, heartbreaking memoir of grandparents who move in with their son-in-law following their daughter's sudden death to help raise their three grandchildren. Heartfelt without being overly sentimental or manipulative, it leaves one hopeful about the capacity people have to move on with life in the midst of tragedy. (Finished May 21, 2011)
The Courage to Be (Paul Tillich) -- an exceptionally deep and challenging theological/philosophical work, but required reading for anyone interested in the more (most?) influential thinking (and thinkers) in theology and philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th century. (Finished May 20, 2011)
Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) -- a challenging and complex novel that plays with our conceptions of time, truth, coincidence and storytelling. Not perfect, and likely to frustrate those in search of easy escapist fiction, but a fun and unique trip for the reader up for a challenge. (Finished May 14, 2011)
American Transcendentalism: A History (Philip J. Gura) -- an excellent historical and biographical look at an amazing intellectual/spiritual/social movement in America in the mid-to-late 1800s. (Finished April 25, 2011)
The Case for Books (Robert Darnton) -- despite the odd interesting fact or anecdote, this is a generally dry and redundant work, which is the fault of a bad editor, and not the author himself. (Finished April 22, 2011)
Old School (Tobias Wolff) -- a brief (195 pages) story of literary passion, honour, memory and forgiveness at a boys' boarding school in 1960. (Finished April 18, 2011)
The Seven-Story Mountain (Thomas Merton) -- a thoughtful autobiography on the value and hardships of monastic life. (Finished April 15, 2011)
The Children's Hospital (Chris Adrian) -- a fascinating and ambitious novel that demands a great deal of patience and suspension of disbelief from its readers; though not without flaws, the originality and vision of the narrative makes it worth the 616-page trip. (Finished April 3, 2011)
Travels With Charley (John Steinbeck) -- a memoir of Steinbeck's three-month road trip in 1960 throughout the United States with his poodle, Charley. Even though there are lulls in the journey, the handful of encounters (with people and the environment) Steinbeck describes are humourous, thoughtful, tragic and uplifting. (Finished March 24, 2011)
Look at the Birdie (Kurt Vonnegut) -- a collection of previously unreleased short stories by Vonnegut; while they do not possess the polish and brilliance of his later works, it is worthwhile to witness brilliance in its early days. (Finished March 24, 2011)
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen) -- a simple but well-told story of a young man who joins the circus during the Great Depression. Not brilliant literature by any means, but an entertaining escape nevertheless. (Finished March 11, 2011)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thorton Wilder) -- a curious (likely unheard of) short novel (123 pages); a very readable meditation on the individual's search for spiritual meaning in the face of tragedy. (Finished March 6, 2011)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) -- a novel ahead of its time, with a strong, independent female protagonist; probably not for everyone, but certain to be popular with fans of Victorian literature. (Finished March 1, 2011)
The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion) -- a moving and thoughtful memoir on loss and grieving. (Finished January 31, 2011)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) -- a powerful book about hope, family and despair set during the Great Depression; despite being set almost 80 years ago, still incredibly relevant to today's world. (Finished January 23, 2011)