This week we’re here to talk about — not Donna Tartt’s wonderful The Goldfinch, which we became too sick to finish, but instead about the comfort books we read while we were ill! (We’re sorry. We promise to review The Goldfinch next time.) We review one longtime comfort book for Gin Jenny (hopefully it will become a comfort book for Whiskey Jenny also in the future), Rumer Godden’s wonderful Listen to the Nightingale (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository), and as a nod to the existence of Halloween, we talk a little bit about scary stories we have enjoyed. You…
12 CommentsReading the End Posts
The beginning: In Life after Life, a woman called Ursula takes out a gun to shoot Hitler. At once we are flashed back to the day of her birth, when she dies from having the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. But Ursula is not a regular child. She gets to try again. The second time around, the doctor arrives in time to save her with a pair of surgical scissors, and she survives to live a regular life. Again and again throughout her childhood, Ursula dies, and dies, and dies again. Always she gets another try at life. She…
21 CommentsWhenever my family discusses which superheroes various NFL quarterbacks would be, everyone agrees that Drew Brees would be Captain America. I agree too, I guess, but it bums me out because Captain America is sort of (sorry! sorry! sorry! but he is) boring. And Drew Brees is not boring. In real life it is heartwarming, not dull, for someone to be all the time kind and good. Randon always says: “I think you should read some more Captain America comics. I think you’d like him if you read some of his comics.” And I say, “Mmmmmmmm, I don’t think so.”…
11 CommentsThe beginning: Hurrah, multiple points of view! (In retrospect, the multiple points of view is probably the reason I added this book to my TBR list in the first place.) Mudbound (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) opens with two brothers, Jamie and Henry McAllan, hastening to dig a grave for their father before the rains start again; while Henry’s wife, Laura, barely conceals her relief at the old man’s death. Then we jump back in time a few years, to the time when Laura and Henry met and married and moved to Mississippi to run a farm there. Laura…
29 CommentsAw, y’all, thanks for pointing me in the direction of this book. I would never have known about it if the blogosphere hadn’t all jumped up and down shouting “LOOK HERE AT THIS,” so as ever, I am indebted to you for your bookfinding awesomeness. The beginning: Sophie lives in an occupied French town during World War I, and she and her sister and brother are struggling to get by. When the Kommandant of the German regiment sees a portrait of Sophie, painted by her husband, he begins to take an interest in them, an interest that could prove…
12 CommentsThe beginning: To cheer up his wife Judy, who is saddened by their inability to have children, a man called Walt buys and brings home a baby chimpanzee. Judy and Walt name him Looee and raise him as their own child. The end (no spoilers you couldn’t guess on your own; but still, spoilers): Not very informative. Looee is no longer living with Walt and Judy, a future we all saw coming. He now lives in what seems like qualified contentment with some other chimpanzees. Maybe a refuge? A portion of the sales profits on this book are going…
7 CommentsThe comics episode has returned for another go! Randon and I talk about the cinematic Marvel universe as it’s developed since last we spoke; we discuss the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy series in Marvel Now; and we respond to a reader comment about knowing how to read comics. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 9 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We will appreciate it…
11 CommentsThe beginning: Two war wives in the midst of World war II, one pregnant, one with a husband and son both away at war, begin corresponding with each other. Through their letters, they become very dear friends, exchanging recipes, sympathy, and prayers for each other. At first, I thought I’ll Be Seeing You (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository) was a very by-the-numbers homefront of World War II book. To some extent, it is. The women talk about missing their menfolk; Rita finds out that her son was sort of seeing a nondescript woman at the local bar, which…
4 CommentsThe beginning: A man called Ben, separated from his wife, has come to Greece for three months to get away from his life in Oxford. For a while he works at a meat grill in Athens, but a chance meeting with a colleague gets him a job on an excavation at Sparta, an excavation populated with a group of strange, unfriendly, exclusive people. The end (no spoilers): I had it in my head that this book was like a cross between a Carol Goodman novel and The Secret History. The eternity Ben spends in Athens as a waiter or whatever…
16 CommentsThe beginning: An unnamed narrator and his flatmate Ruby come home one day to find that a girl has died outside of their squat. “What it needs now,” says Ruby, “is for the radio to start playing ‘You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, and You’re Mine.’” “Yes,” I agree. “If that was to happen it would be immensely poignant.” But when I switch on the radio the only station we can find is broadcasting a report from the Tokyo stock market instead, and no matter how we try we cannot work this up into any really effective kind of…
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