Tag Archives: lovely-lovely language
Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
Read March 2022 Recommended ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Continuing my streak in above-average teen-adult books, I’m going to have to relax my genre prejudices. Really, I shouldn’t have them; I grew up female, after all, and found a great … Continue reading
The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall
Read March 2022 Recommended for people that like show over substance and dreamstate ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Evocative imagery, inexpert execution. Any time one talks borderlands, one starts to invoke folk tales and myths, the stories about edges between life … Continue reading
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Read October to December 2019 Recommended for people who love beautiful things ★ ★ ★ ★ Ultimately, I am reminded of an elaborate, beautiful confection, perhaps this Spanische Windtorte: Elaborately constructed, lovely, sweet, best enjoyed at a … Continue reading
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Read August 2017 Recommended for Americans ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “And all this is happening in the richest and freest country in the world, and in the middle of the 20th century. The subtle and deadly change of … Continue reading
Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft. But slowly. Oh-so-slowly.
Read April 2017 Recommended for fans of The Orphan’s Tales ★ ★ 1/2 This was one of the most lovely books I almost didn’t finish. To certain library books I must ask certain questions: are they worth overdue fines? Perhaps … Continue reading
The Master by Claire North
Read December 2015 Recommended for fans of global games ★ ★ ★ ★ The third in North’s triptych of novellas about The Gamehouse. You keep using that word. I know, I know; but I’m having a … Continue reading
The Serpent by Claire North. Or, A good game
Read December 2015 Recommended for fans of politics, Venice ★ ★ ★ ★ Are games a metaphor for life? Or are they life? The Gamehouse thinks it knows the answer. “Should you win, you may not wish … Continue reading
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Finished April 2015 Recommended for fans of the apocalypse, celebrity-gazing ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 “One of the great scientific questions of Galileo’s time was whether the Milky Way was made up of individual stars. Impossible to imagine this … Continue reading
Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer. Or, at least Ambivalence.
November 2014 Recommended for fans of sci-fi, hallucinogenic fiction ★ ★ ★ ★ Once again, Vandermeer astonishes me with evocative, symbolic language: “The fifth morning I rose from the grass and dirt and sand, the brightness had gathered … Continue reading
Authority by Jeff Vandermeer. Or, lack thereof.
September 2014 Recommended for fans of metaphors, slow-moving puzzles ★ ★ ★ ★ If Annihilation reminded me of Jeanette Winterson’s writing, then Authority reminded me of Kafka, but not the interesting Kafka, one of the boring ones, which surely … Continue reading
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