Thursday, January 29, 2015

Winesburg, Ohio

By Sherwood Anderson

A collection of short stories that form a sort of a novel. The stories are somewhat connected by one of the characters, but mostly they are connected by themes. Some of them are very nice, others I found a bit lacking.

book link here

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Private Lives of Trees

By Alejandro Zambra

A short, interesting novel about a guy who tells the daughter of his wife a story about the private lives of trees, while his wife is not coming home from work.  [98 pp.]

Link to book

Friday, November 21, 2014

Dubliners

By James Joyce

The famous collection of stories about random people's lives in Dublin. Not all of them were easy for me to read and/or understand. Sometimes it seems difficult to relate to one character, because a story is told from multiple perspectives. [304 pp.]

Link to book

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Woodcutters

By Thomas Bernhard

A 181-page paragraph describing the thoughts of the narrator as he sits in his chair at an "artistic party" in Vienna of the 1980s. It is actually more interesting than it might sound, because there is a lot of tension between the narrator and the rest of the party, especially the host and some of the guests. They were all friends back in the '50s, and perhaps more than friends, and now they were partying and awaiting the guest of honor, a famous theater actor, after they buried another friend. Though I liked the story, and it seemed like it would be interesting to read more of this author's stories, I felt like I didn't want to handle another single-paragraph narratives right now, which seem to be the typical style of this author.

Book link

Saturday, September 13, 2014

The Gap Year

By Sarah Bird

A story told from the points of view of mother and daughter, chronicling their lives about one year apart, during the most difficult period in their relationship. The mother is excited for her daughter to go to college, but the daughter doesn't really want to go, she'd rather stay in the suburb her mother so despises. Both think the other will not understand, and spend the year with a huge gap in communication. [320 pp.].

Booklink

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Echo Detained

By Joshua Daniel Cochran

At first, the story seemed a bit intense for me, but I am very faint of heart, so it doesn't mean it is actually intense.  But indeed, horrible things happen to this guy Caleb (aka Echo), and none of it makes sense.  It was interesting, though, and fairly well written.  Sometimes it was even entertaining (especially the Delasco parts), though I have a feeling it was supposed to be more so than it seemed to me. [216 pp.]

Book link

Sunday, July 27, 2014

The Widow's War

By Sally Gunning

A beatifully-written story about a woman in 18th century Cape Code who loses her husband, and with it, almost, all of her rights. But she fights back to keep her independence as much as she can, while committing punishable sins left and right, without actually harming anybody. Did she win? [320 pp.]

Book link