Archive for the ‘General Fiction’ Category
A Gate At The Stairs is one of “those” books – beautiful writing, intelligent conversation flowing through the book, a sensitive plot, and a book with great potential. Tassie is a college student in the Mid-western town of Troy, who finds a job as a baby sitter for Sarah, an affluent restaurant-owner who adopts Emmie, […]
Filed under: Amazon's Best Books Of The Year, Books 2010, General Fiction, Lorrie Moore, New York Times Notable Book Of The Year, Orange Prize Shortlist, Review | 9 Comments
Tags: Adoption, Lorrie Moore
Monica Dickens – Mariana
I bought this book back in January, simply because the blurb likened it to I Capture The Castle, and ended up “saving” it for the Persephone Reading Week (hosted by Verity and Claire). I had great expectations from this book (if you may excuse the totally unnecessary pun), not only because of the blurb comparing […]
Filed under: Books 2010, Coming of Age, General Fiction, Monica Dickens, Persephone Books, Persephone Classics, Review | 33 Comments
Tags: London, Monica Dickens, Paris, World War II
Angela Carter – Shadow Dance
Angela Carter’s debut book, Shadow Dance, is the fifth book by her that I’ve read, and it’s as bizarre as the previous three. Due to a million other things, I wasn’t able to get my thoughts out on this sooner, which is a pity, as I wanted it to tie in with Claire’s Angela Carter […]
Filed under: Angela Carter, Books 2010, General Fiction, Review, Virago Modern Classics | 9 Comments
Tags: Angela Carter
Death At Intervals (also published as Death With Interruptions) is an extremely surreal book by the Nobel Laureate, Jose Saramago. In a country (not necessarily futuristic), people have stopped dying one new year’s day, in spite of illness, accidents and life in general. The different strata of society react differently: people are initially joyous as […]
Filed under: Books 2010, General Fiction, Jose Saramago, Magical Realism, Nobel Prize Winners, Review | 13 Comments
Tags: Dystopia, Jose Saramago
Jeffrey Eugenides – Middlesex
I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. So opens Eugenides’ epic novel, Middlesex. Calliope “Cal” Stephanides was declared a girl when she came into this […]
Filed under: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Books 2010, Coming of Age, General Fiction, Guardian 1000, Jeffrey Eugenides, National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Pulitzer Prize Winners | 41 Comments
Tags: Greece, Jeffrey Eugenides
Simon Lelic – Rupture
We live in a world of the Columbine High School shootings, the Red Lake High School shootings and the Virginia Tech shootings. Something pushes people to pull the trigger on innocent people, and hard as we may try, the horror that ensues just cannot be justified. In Simon Lelic’s debut novel, Rupture, the shooter, Mr. Samuel […]
Filed under: Books 2010, General Fiction, Review, Simon Lelic | 15 Comments
Tags: Simon Lelic
I discovered the wonderful world of Angela Carter only last year, and I’ve been trying to read all her works slowly, savouring every moment of it. Of course, the bonus is the gorgeous covers, which draws me to her books like a moth…. The thing with Several Perceptions is, it’s totally unlike anything I’ve read […]
Filed under: Angela Carter, Books 2010, General Fiction, Review, Somerset Maughm Award, Virago Modern Classics | 14 Comments
Tags: Angela Carter
another cookie crumbles 