I couldn’t remember the title of this book when I sat down to write, so I popped into google the things I could remember: novel, nineteenth century, crofter, bloody, murder, Scotland. And pop! Google knew exactly the title because there aren’t many novels set in the 1880s Scotland about a murderous crofter. (Probably there’s just this one.) Google also wanted me to know that Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author. You probably wanted to know, too. Continue reading
Category Archives: Book I’ll Forget I Read
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine: Yet Another Peculiar Protagonist Seeking Community.
Yet another novel about a peculiar protagonist who begins the novel alone and misunderstood and who ends the novel connected with community and understanding her quirks as endearing and/or strengths. I suppose if I hadn’t read so many novels with the same plot and with the same variations on character theme I might find this one endearing. But as it is, I’ve had quite enough of this sort of thing.
Filed under Bestseller, Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction
The Racketeer: What a Tub of Icecream is to Literature
I packed for the cottage: Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, a collection of the best of Alice Munro, and the only Margaret Laurence novel I’ve never read, The Fire Dwellers. I was set with the triumvirate of excellent Canadian authors (who also happen to be white ladies). I imagined sitting on the dock taking in the changing leaves and lapping lake while absorbing some of the best of Canadian literature. Instead I got to the cottage, put out all the books on the coffee table and immediately… picked up the copy of John Grishman’s The Racketeer from the cottage bookshelf. Turns out what I really wanted was to eat a tub of mental icecream. And I did. And I felt appropriately sick after, so there you go. I seem to recall C. using a similar description in her guest post, so thanks C. for making me think of novels as tasty treats! Continue reading
Filed under Bestseller, Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction
Birdie: Why my book club friends are always wrong.
There are books you read because you want to, books you read because they’re recommended, books you read because you’re required, books you read out of curiosity and books you read because you should. For me, Tracy Lindberg’s Birdie is a novel I was required to read for book club and a book I thought I should read because Lindberg brings voice in fiction to the narrative of murdered and missing indigenous women. While I’m glad I read it, I didn’t enjoy the novel, or think it was particularly well written. Continue reading
Filed under Book Club, Book I'll Forget I Read, Canadian Literature, Fiction
Literary Vice 