I do not have an issue with magical realism in books; in fact, I enjoy it. Isabel Allende and Sarah Addison Allen both use it — in very different ways — to add spark and dimension to their novels. Alice Hoffman’s Illumination Night, by contrast, seems weighed down by it — or maybe that was just the utterly depressing story. “He fell in love with the way she closed her eyes, long before he fell in love with her.” In Martha’s Vineyard, we’re introduced to a […]
You could never get away with this in 2016, that’s for sure
I saw the film version of The Talented Mr. Ripley in theaters in 1999. I remember very little, other than one of the gorgeous leads (Jude Law or Matt Damon) spends some time in a bathtub and you can kind of see his junk for a second. I had no idea that it was based on the first of a series of books written in the 1950s. A pretty good book, too, although it features neither Jude Law or Matt Damon. The book starts when our protagonist, Tom Ripley, […]
“Oh, and if you are reading this on a computerized reading machine, F@*& YOU!!!”
I really enjoyed some parts of Rainn Wilson’s biography — tell me more about The Office, and the criminally underrated good/bad movie Sahara! — although some of the navel-gazing, actor-y stuff got a little old. Overall, it’s worth the read to see how many different ways he can insult his own head-size. For real. “I was terrified, lost. Like most moments of intense personal tragedy, it was both heartbreaking and a little bit ridiculous.” Rainn had an…interesting upbringing. His parents separated when he was a toddler, […]
The Ruth will set you free.
I read three sort of meh mysteries on my trip, but my plane ride home was rocked by this biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A well-written (and funny! and interesting!) book about a fascinating (and funny! and BOLD!) woman. Every one of you needs to go read this book. “The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage.” Inspired by a tumblr page (which lends a few great images to the book), Notorious RBG: The Life and […]