I recently had a middle of the night worry that an author of a book I didn’t like might stumble across one of my I-didn’t-like-it reviews. Don’t worry. I fell quickly back to sleep. But the thought lingered. I like writing a good scathing review as much as the next blogger, but was I being fair to the novelist? Was I just having fun being a little too mean? Continue reading
Exit West: This futuristic fairy tale will make you sad. And then you’ll forget it. Because feelings are for suckers.
Mohsin Hamid had an idea: a future where people could travel by walking through a door. And then he tried to write a novel – Exit West – around this idea with varying degrees of success. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction
His Bloody Project: Blerg.
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
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Booker Prize, Fiction, Prize Winner
Slade House: The Worst Book by the Best Author
I’ve now read all of David Mitchell’s novels and I can comfortably say Slade House is the worst.* (I’ve read all of Mitchell’s books because he is a giant of excellence and incredible and even though this book isn’t great you should read all of his books and that’s that.) At first blush a spooky haunted house story, the novel takes a strange – and not well executed – turn when it wraps everything up in the neat mythology of the (exceptional and genius) The Bone Clocks. Continue reading
Literary Vice 