Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, book review (audiobook and written)

[CATEGORIES: Literature, Reading, Book Review] [Images courtesy Audible.com and Wikipedia.] (Brevity, still brevity. A commentary, more than a review.  I pale, even cower, in the lengthy shadows of real reviewers like the NYRB.) This man can WRITE. Too brief?  Here is more: Invisible Man, not THE Invisible Man.  The book and author have been on …

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. A review.

[CATEGORIES: Literature, Lapham’s Quarterly, Reading, Book Review] [Click HERE to see my previous posts referencing Lapham’s Quarterly.] [Some of LQ’s contents are available free.] After reading and reviewing Conrad's The Secret Agent I learned his better known work Heart of Darkness was fairly short.  With that for an excuse I dived in.  It was gripping.  I read it …

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. A review.

[CATEGORIES: Literature, Lapham’s Quarterly, Reading, Book Review] [Click HERE to see my previous posts referencing Lapham’s Quarterly.] [Some of LQ’s contents are available free.] Speed reader though I am not, I recently inhaled this book, reading it devotedly and continuously.  Preceding and inspiring perhaps the spirit of modern day spy and mystery novels, Conrad weaves various characters and …

Lapham’s Quarterly Fall 2014: Time

Perception is reality.  (Isn't it?  Sometimes?) Time is a ring.  A year of time is a ring, that is.  It stands vertical as though one were facing it and the year proceeds counter-clockwise (of course), from right to left over the top of the ring, down the left side arc, across the bottom arc, and …

Fast Track by John DeDakis, book review

[Categories: Literature, Reading, Writing, Fiction, Mystery, Book Review] Wow!  This is GOOD! Five stars, bearing in mind I've given everyone from Chester Nez through Jodi Picoult to Ayn Rand the same on their individual merit, not as compared to each other. [Click to zoom.] From an author with whom I wasn't familiar until recently, I was …

Jodi Picoult (pronounced Pico, or pee-koe)

[CATEGORIES: Literature, Reading] Grieving elephants.  She spoke about researching grieving elephants, how they sometimes stay with their dead for awhile, how they will fondle the bones of dead elephants and visit the places of their death as if paying their respects. I had heard about elephants doing that.  Perhaps a news item I'd run across …

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult, book review

[Categories: Literature, Reading, Fiction, Book Review] Jodi Picoult.  Word-crafter.  Wordsmith.  Prose-positer. Prosaic: 1.  a. Consisting or characteristic of prose. [YES!] b. Matter-of-fact; straightforward.  [Not so much.  Plot twists!] 2. Lacking in imagination and spirit; dull.  [NOT!] Such as: "Betrayal was a stone beneath the mattress of the bed you shared, something you felt digging into you no matter how …

In The Blood by Lisa Unger – Book Review

[Categories: Books, Reading] [No spoilers alert!   I think the LESS you know about this book the more you will appreciate it.] Clever.  Clever, clever, clever.  And dark.  Very dark. A fictional murder mystery, but not 'just' a murder mystery. This is one of the most carefully, cleverly structured plots I've read.  Twists and turns that …

The Hunger Games Trilogy, Boxed Set – Book Review

[Categories: Books, Reading, Literature, Photography.] [Click on photos to enlarge.  Taken with my new Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens.  Single icon photos are crops/blowups of cover photos.  Photography 101 forever.] Three stars out of five.  The trilogy is: The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and Mockingjay.  They are a single story told in …

What are YOU reading?

[Categories: Literature, Reading.] But enough about YOU.  What about ME? It seems like I'm reading EVERYTHING (exaggeratedly of course). I've been reading a lot of 'stuff' lately and still have a lot of 'stuff' to read. [Click on photos to enlarge, if you are so inclined.] Since December I've read or I'm reading: Hound of …

The Racketeer by John Grisham

No-spoilers alert! This book is too good to interfere with the suspense and plot twists. You will get more info from the book jacket or other reviews than you will from me. I try not to read other reviews before writing my own so I can give my untainted opinion. The Racketeer is pure entertainment. …

Lapham’s Quarterly Winter 2012: Family

    A review. Lapham’s Quarterly is a superb assembly of thought from all of recorded history.  Each quarterly issue gathers essays and commentaries from great thinkers on a broad but specific topic. Recent issues have dwelt on Food, Lines of Work, Celebrity, The City, and Arts and Letters. (I saw a video interviewer pronounce …

The Litigators by John Grisham, review

This is the second book I've inhaled during the last two weeks, a good speed for me. (See my recent review of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.) This one took about five days. I like to read but I'm lazy about it so I must have been gifted with two decent books this Christmas. The Litigators is …