I am afraid that if I keep saying sweet to describe Martin Millar’s book, it will seem to be that I am damning him with faint praise and denying that he has any edge. Because his books contain themes about racism and drugs and sex and whatnot, and these aren’t things generally associated with books that are sweet. On the other hand, if Martin Millar didn’t want his books to be described as sweet, he should not have written such extremely sweet books. So it’s not really my fault. Lux the Poet is about several things. It’s about a poet…
2 CommentsReading the End Posts
Recommended by my mother. Of course. This is a book about a girl in 1920s New Orleans who dies prematurely, before anything about her life gets properly decided, particularly before she makes a decision about her boyfriend Andrew, a fact that proves troublesome to her after she dies. She is called Razi, and she haunts a Baton Rouge couple, Amy and Scott, who are dealing with the fallout from a loss of their own. The story flips back and forth between their story and Razi’s life as a – for lack of a better word – ghost, over the years,…
2 CommentsOn reflection, I believe I am glad I didn’t buy this in my recent spate of bookbuying, because I have still not decided whether I want to own it forever. It’s very good – a graphic novel memoir about first love and losing faith – and I enjoyed it both times I read it, and I am looking forward to Craig Thompson’s next, whenever that may be. I don’t have anything bad to say about it, actually. The drawings are black and white, line drawings, and Mr. Thompson makes excellent use of the whole graphic novel form to do things…
2 CommentsOn with the reading of books by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine to decide what I indeed think of her! Adam and Eve and Pinch Me – of whose title, incidentally, I simply cannot approve – is all about a caddish man called Jeffrey John Leach, who is wickedly assuming false names and seducing women so that they will give him money, and then he ups and vanishes, leaving them a bit in the lurch. He has done just this to two of the three central characters here – crazy Minty Knox who has OCD and hears voices, and opportunist Zillah Leach…
Leave a Comment“Did someone die in here or what?” …. “Yes,” she told Andy, “somebody die die in here but I have, of course, since changed the sheets.” I read about this book here, and felt smugly certain that I would not be, as Powell’s review suggested some would be, “deaf to this novel’s considerable charm”, thus would not have “wandered away long before those scenes [the ones with plot in them] arrive.” They said it was like Jane Austen, and I suppose I thought that meant gently satirical and not very exciting in a Scarlet Pimpernel way, but nevertheless containing various…
Leave a CommentRecommended by actually a number of book blogs – A Reader’s Journal and the other Jenny Claire from my lovely home state both reviewed it well. I’ve been putting off reading this because I didn’t like Chocolat at all – I thought the film was better. A terrifying and rare thing for me to say, and I generally only say it about The Princess Bride and Cold Comfort Farm; my opinion swayed in the latter case by how adorable I think Kate Beckinsale is, and how all the jokes surprised me in the film but not in the book, which…
1 Comment