Are We at War with England Now?

Have you read this article about judge withdrawing over Philip Roth’s International Booker win? I find it outrageous. Author and publisher Carmen Callil, whom I have previously never heard of, withdrew from the judge panel over its decision to honor the American author. The matter turned ugly and scandalous following these comments of Ms. Callil. [...]

A Reader’s Crisis

Describe the last time you were stumped for something to read, and you took measures to remedy that — either by going to the bookstore, the library, or shopping elsewhere. What book did you choose? Did it get you out of your slump? It actually happened twice this past week. I was completely stumped after [...]

[372] The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

” But now there is hardly a world around them and they are forced back on themselves. During these days in the hill town near Florence, indoors during the day of rain, daydreaming in the one soft chair in the kitchen or on the bed or on the roof, he has no plots to set [...]

When the Book Fights the Bookweight…

Someone, a book blogger, asks, to be honest, if I prefer an e0reader or an actual book. I love my iPad when I have trouble laying a book flat on the table. When even a bookweight doesn’t press the book flat down, the flat screen of iPad comes to rescue. The device actually shows the [...]

Rut

Do you ever feel like you’re in a reading rut? That you don’t read enough variety? That you need to branch out, spread your literary wings and explore other genres, flavors, styles? I’m always in a reading rut and I feel there’s nothing wrong about it. Literary fiction and contemporary literature are pretty much all [...]

[371] Alternatives to Sex – Stephen McCauley

” During the scattered periods of my life when I’d been in long-term relationships, I’d been ashamed by adeptness at fidelity, which had made me feel unmanly. I’d used evasive language and innuendo to convey the impression that I was leading a wildly promiscuous life. ” (13) Set in a “posttraumatic time of uncertainty and [...]

[370] All the Names – José Saramago

Senhor José’s life is nothing but ordinary: in an unnamed city he works as a lowly clerk for the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Death where the living and dead permanently share the same shelf in a single archive. In his early fifties, José has a laudable modesty of those who do not go [...]

Flâneur

Everything about this book is beautiful: the cute portable size, the cover art, the writing, the subject of the writing. “Flâneur” comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, “loafer”—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means “to stroll”. In mid-19th century, a flâneur is highly [...]

[369] Force of Gravity – R.S. Jones

” In his other life, the simplest details had stumped him. He could not imagine how he might shop, work, do his banking, unconsciously, as others did. He did not know how to free himself from what he had become. ” (III 3:281) Force of Gravity is nothing like Walking on Air, the psychological study [...]

[368] Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence

” In this short summer night she learnt so much. She would have thought a woman would have died of shame. Instead of which, the shame died. Shame, which is fear: the deep organic shame, the old, old physical fear which crouches in the bodily roots of us, and can only be chased away by [...]