My mum told me about Herman Koch’s The Dinner ages ago, and I started reading it and didn’t like it (after 20 pages or so) and so quit. So when it was picked for book club I was big shrug meh about reading it. And finishing it I’m still big shrug meh. Continue reading
The Dinner: Late to the Party
Filed under Bestseller, Book Club, Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction, Mystery
Should I review podcasts, too?
I listen to a lot of podcasts. Like too many. I’m tempted to claim podcast cred by pointing out I’ve been listening to podcasts since 2005, but it’s not important that you know how long (see how I did that? told you anyway?), just that I listen a lot and have opinions about what podcasts make for good listening (and not). Before foisting my podcast views on you, dear readers, I thought I’d check whether such reviews would be of any interest. No pressure – if you’re only here for reviews of novels that’s a-okay. I can keep my podcast opinions to myself (and the cats).
Filed under Fiction
Crazy Rich Asians: Cinderella Wears All the Diamonds
It’s hard to read a book like Crazy Rich Asians while living a decidedly middle class life. It’s probably harder still if you’re not the beneficiary of a defined benefits pension plan and in a unionized position like I am. The book sets out to be fun [insert jazz hands]! To introduce the west to contemporary Asia! To put displays of excess on the page for ogling. Because if you can’t have your own billion dollars, the next best thing must be to read about it, right? Continue reading
Filed under Bestseller, Book Club, Fiction
Saints, Unexpected: Even Hamilton Couldn’t Make it Good
We read Brent van Staalduinen’s Saints, Unexpected for book club, and if it hadn’t been a book club read I likely wouldn’t have finished it. I’m loathe to write a negative review for a book that is so obviously earnest: written by a local author, published by a small press, in every way a book that wears its heart on its cover. So it gives me no pleasure to report that it is… not good. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Canadian Literature, Fiction
Literary Vice 