The Magic Barrel – 5/5 Stars This story collection came out in 1959 and contains the well known title story, but also has several other very good stories. It won the National Book Award as well. As I have previously stated in reviews, the age of the writer (here in a kind of debut effort) lends itself to an already mature and thoughtful work (this was also true for many of Raymond Chandler’s stories as well as the story collection A Lucky Man by Jamel […]
He kisses—how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you.
Less – 3/5 Stars This is the novel that won the Pulitzer Prize this year, and I do like it. But it’s almost like Andrew Sean Greer tricked or taunted the Pulitizer Committee into giving him the prize since this is a novel about a slightly failed or at least merely moderately successful writer putzing around while others around him remind him of his own mediocrity or middlingness but doing things like winning the Pulitzer Prize. The novel begins with Less, the eponymous protagonist, being […]
Life
A musician’s instrument is broken. He walks to the shop to buy a new one, but each one he tries sounds wrong. He travels across the country to buy another one, but when he comes home it still does not sound right. So he decides to die. Chicken with plums takes place in the eight days were he is waiting to die. He stays in bed thinking over his life, as his children, wife and family visit him to try to talk to him. Nothing […]
Childhood in Iran
Best for: Anyone who likes a well-told story. In a nutshell: Young girl growing up in Iran in the 70s and 80s. Line that sticks with me: “In any case, as long as there is oil in the middle east we will never have peace.” Why I chose it: A friend and I were discussing books and I shared how much I enjoyed the March graphic novels. She lent me this one, and I’m very glad she did. Review: I’d heard of this book before, […]