So these two books round out my catching up on lost reviews. I feel like I’ve read a hundred books that I’ve had to force myself to review, because I either didn’t like them enough to form opinions, or couldn’t organize my thoughts well enough to fairly elucidate them. But, now that the pressure of playing catch-up is over, maybe I’ll do a better job going forward. 11. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (3 stars) Merricat Blackwood, her older sister Constance, […]
“You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
There is a complex tapestry of finely woven threads that make up this story; each one reaching back into antiquity, becoming drab of color and less distinct. The tapestry details the modern world, and without these threads, it’s impossible to understand the context in which we live. This book is an attempt to explain this tapestry, and details its creation via the economic systems of Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States. It follows their development in the 19th century, through WWI and it’s […]
Poor Orpheus woke up with a start / all amongst the rotting dead
I read this maybe a month ago, and was in the midst of a reading malaise that suppressed not only my interest in what I was reading, but made reviewing almost impossible. I just couldn’t transfer my thoughts into a coherent description of the book. I don’t know. I think I’m still in a reviewing funk, but I’m trying to get them posted before I get too far behind. What Dreams May Come is an epistolary paean to one man’s love for his wife; a wife […]
America was born in the crucible of the civil war, and Ulysses Grant was the avatar for its renewed life.
This was a marvelous biography of an iconic American who’s life coincided with some of the most tumultuous and divisive events in American history. But I find myself struggling to review it. H.W. Brands doesn’t skimp on the details. His Ronald Regan biography tips the scales with more than 800 pages. His book on FDR is even more ambitious, being close to 900 pages – though, when you consider that FDR had nearly twice as much time in office as Regan, it may be said […]