I’ve fallen further behind in my reviews than I ever have. So, I’ve decided to do what I did for The Dresden Files: combine my reviews into one giant post. Is that cheating? I feel like that’s cheating. The longer I drag this out, though, the more I’m likely to fall behind. The Stranger, by Albert Camus (5 stars) Firstly, I read this because it’s one of the most frequently cited great novels from French literature. In my quest to read more classic novels this […]
What’s for dinner? Joie de vivre
I had the good fortune to be able to read this novel prior to, and during a trip to Paris, France. I am a self-described foodie (though I dislike the term). I am that person who is constantly inundating social media with food pics, tries to shop locally and seasonally, and enjoys cooking a good meal. I knew that Julia Child was a tour de force in the cooking world, as she practically introduced French cooking to the United States, and a charming and captivating […]
The Real Housewife of Yonville
Clearly the only way I can get myself to read one of the books in my continually growing to-be-read pile is for there to be a movie coming out. Get on it Hollywood, there are about 60 books I still need to get through. Disclaimers: I read a translation due to my French being nonexistent, but the original is supposed to be exquisite. I don’t have to warn about spoilers in a review about something published in 1856, do I? Madame Bovary is one of those classics in which the elements that […]
It’s Drafty in the Trenches, Oh
Jacques Tardi’s World War I opus, Goddamn This War!, is a hard beast to categorize, at least when using English terminology. It’s not a comic book, and for a graphic novel it’s not very novelistic. But call it what you will, it’s hard to deny its power. This is a harrowing masterpiece of one unnamed soldier’s experiences in the Great War that so wholly failed to be the war to end all wars. Things the reader won’t find in Goddamn This War! include plot and dialogue. Does […]