Though short stories — which is what Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror is, short stories with a frame device — are not generally my thing, the genre of short story most likely to please me is horror. (Ghost horror, not serial killer horror. Ghosts are imaginary, but serial killers are very real, and terrifying.) I ordinarily discount short story books unless they are pressed on me by friends who are sure they can change my mind about short stories (they can’t), but the horror thing and the thin, weird, slightly Goreyish illustrations made me decide to give Uncle Montague’s Tales…
16 CommentsCategory: 4 Stars
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Here’s what happened. The lovely and beautiful Jeanne, who has probably the best blog name out there and is also just an awesome person, sent me The Gone-Away World for my birthday last year. It came in the mail and was a complete and delightful surprise, and I was so touched, and I started reading The Gone-Away World right away because Jeanne said it was one of her favorite books ever. Immediately had no idea what the hell was happening. There were, like, pigs? And some sort of pipe disaster that maybe had…
28 CommentsWell, this was an unexpected delight. I picked up The Family Man at the library on impulse because I was stuck between two other library browsers in the L section (one had kids and one was in a wheelchair so I felt rude demanding they move for me) and waiting for one of them to clear the aisle, and I thought I had heard Lipman’s name before, and my bag felt empty and sad. Elinor Lipman’s name sounded familiar, and Then She Found Me — which the jacket of The Family Man said Elinor Lipman had also written — sounded…
27 CommentsI thought Leap Day would be an excellent day to post about Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a story about things that might or might not be real, and events that happen inside and outside of time. My sister (Indie Sister!) gave this to me for Christmas, and I actually read it a while ago but missed reviewing it in one of my reviewing flurries. So I shall talk about it now instead! Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is about a boy called Jacob who was traumatized by the sudden, violent death of his grandfather. He remembers seeing a…
30 CommentsThis book was so cool! (Except for the unacceptable way there was no index. What nonfiction book skips indexing??) But it should stand as a lesson in the importance of titles. This is a dreary title, isn’t it? I got the book at the library in a very grudging spirit, because I wanted to read loads of books about conservation and cultural property controversies and archaeological ethics and all that sort of thing, but they didn’t have very many books like that (see previously No Bone Unturned and Stealing History for the only other two books I could find on…
25 CommentsIt comforts me when writers are bad at titles. Some writers are disturbingly good at titles, like Tennessee Williams. Some, like Ann Patchett, are not. I am not good at titles myself, although I keep meaning to embark on a project whereby I think of a title for the day before I go to bed at night. This is a more labor-intensive project than it seems, so I’m putting it off until I finish making my little cousin’s Christmas stocking. Maybe it can be one of my New Year’s Resolutions next year. State of Wonder is about a scientist, Annick…
30 CommentsI remember when I first read Salman Rushdie. I checked Midnight’s Children out of the library along with a bunch of other books, and I thought that if every other book I had turned out to be lame, I would do my duty by literature and read Salman Rushdie who was bound to be boring but I was going to do my duty. By God. And all the other books I checked out turned out to be lame, so I read Midnight’s Children and hey! It turned out it was funny! Salman Rushdie is funny! I was disproportionately shocked and…
34 Comments