Barry's bookshelf: read-in-2015 en-US Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:40:45 -0700 60 Barry's bookshelf: read-in-2015 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Distant Star 925718 160 Roberto Bola単o 1843430940 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 Nazi Literature in the Americas. It's clear why Bola単o made it into a novel, it's one of the most memorable sections of the book. A poet is forced into the Chilean air force and starts a new literary movement by writing poems in the sky above the Andes mountains...

I feel that because I've already read the story which inspired this I didn't really get anything new out of it. However, it is thoroughly enjoyable and probably one of Bola単o's best narratives. I must applaud it for sheer inventiveness and bits of it definitely precurse certain parts of 2666. I think this would be a good one for Bola単o newbies. It's fairly straightforward and is a great example of his unique prose and admirable characters. ]]> 3.75 1996 Distant Star
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
This novel is an extension of the last entry in Bola単o's wonderful earlier work Nazi Literature in the Americas. It's clear why Bola単o made it into a novel, it's one of the most memorable sections of the book. A poet is forced into the Chilean air force and starts a new literary movement by writing poems in the sky above the Andes mountains...

I feel that because I've already read the story which inspired this I didn't really get anything new out of it. However, it is thoroughly enjoyable and probably one of Bola単o's best narratives. I must applaud it for sheer inventiveness and bits of it definitely precurse certain parts of 2666. I think this would be a good one for Bola単o newbies. It's fairly straightforward and is a great example of his unique prose and admirable characters.
]]> Go Set a Watchman 24851602 From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch � Scout� � returns home from New York City to visit her ageing father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louises homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past � a journey that can be guided only by ones own conscience.

Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humour and effortless precision � a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to a classic.]]> 288 Harper Lee 1473535409 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015 (edit: in the original review of this novel I gave it three-stars, after 24-hours of thinking about it I decided to upgrade it to four-stars, thus giving it the same rating that I gave to To Kill A Mockingbird)

This book is the literary equivalent of those reunion episodes of Entertainment Tonight. The whole cast of some old sitcom get together and you just spend the whole time thinking about how old everybody looks.

The basic plot of this new sequel/prequel/first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird is that our beloved narrator, Scout (now Jean Louise), is now in her twenties and returns from New York to visit her father, Atticus, in Maycomb. However, Atticus has changed in these years and now hold views and opinions that greatly upset Jean Louise. That's basically it.

Reading the first page of this novel you are immediately dropped into the familiar prose and voice of Lee's masterwork. Maycomb is alive again in your hands. The novel simmers along at a steady pace as Jean Louise reminisces about her childhood in the town and about her life now. Then about half-way through the plot turns as we discover about what Atticus has been up to. Unless you have been living under a rock then you already know what I'm talking about but if you don't know then I'll tell you, [spoilers removed].

The rest of the book is spent with Jean Louise trying to comprehend her father's new views and it fizzles out after that. The ending of this was far too saccharine for my liking. TKAM was brutal at parts but there is no brutality in this book. It takes a fairly safe and maudlin approach to telling its story. I wouldn't call it bland but it is certainly quite vanilla.

However, if we look past these minor qualms we still have a thoroughly enjoyable novel by one of the 20th century's most celebrated writers. Celebrate that. TKAM purists might hiss and groan at the mere existence of this book, but don't listen to them. This is a good book. ]]> 3.55 2015 Go Set a Watchman
author: Harper Lee
name: Barry
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/14
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
(edit: in the original review of this novel I gave it three-stars, after 24-hours of thinking about it I decided to upgrade it to four-stars, thus giving it the same rating that I gave to To Kill A Mockingbird)

This book is the literary equivalent of those reunion episodes of Entertainment Tonight. The whole cast of some old sitcom get together and you just spend the whole time thinking about how old everybody looks.

The basic plot of this new sequel/prequel/first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird is that our beloved narrator, Scout (now Jean Louise), is now in her twenties and returns from New York to visit her father, Atticus, in Maycomb. However, Atticus has changed in these years and now hold views and opinions that greatly upset Jean Louise. That's basically it.

Reading the first page of this novel you are immediately dropped into the familiar prose and voice of Lee's masterwork. Maycomb is alive again in your hands. The novel simmers along at a steady pace as Jean Louise reminisces about her childhood in the town and about her life now. Then about half-way through the plot turns as we discover about what Atticus has been up to. Unless you have been living under a rock then you already know what I'm talking about but if you don't know then I'll tell you, [spoilers removed].

The rest of the book is spent with Jean Louise trying to comprehend her father's new views and it fizzles out after that. The ending of this was far too saccharine for my liking. TKAM was brutal at parts but there is no brutality in this book. It takes a fairly safe and maudlin approach to telling its story. I wouldn't call it bland but it is certainly quite vanilla.

However, if we look past these minor qualms we still have a thoroughly enjoyable novel by one of the 20th century's most celebrated writers. Celebrate that. TKAM purists might hiss and groan at the mere existence of this book, but don't listen to them. This is a good book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)]]> 3939691
While Holmes and Dr Watson solve what will become some of their most famous cases � Silver Blaze, The Greek Interpreter and The Musgrave Ritual among them � the forces of international crime plot their revenge against the detective.

And it is in The Final Problem that Dr Watson has the sad task of telling the grisly, fatal and shocking tale that saw Holmes finally meet his match � in the guise of the diabolical Professor Moriarty and a terrible struggle at the Reichenbach Falls...]]> 307 Arthur Conan Doyle 0141035439 Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015
If you're looking for a recommendation, give The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes a go. It's a far superior collection. ]]> 4.07 1893 The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #4)
author: Arthur Conan Doyle
name: Barry
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1893
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/27
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
As with most short story collections, you have hits and misses. However in this collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle writes far too many misses to be it to be enjoyable. As the collection went on I found myself getting less and less invested in the stories of the great detective. I tutted and sighed at how formulaic and ridiculous some of the stories were. My utter frustration came to a vocal climax when Holmes was pushed from the Reichenbach Falls and I muttered, "thank god".

If you're looking for a recommendation, give The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes a go. It's a far superior collection.
]]> The Ballad of the Sad Caf辿 967764 157 Carson McCullers 014018130X Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 The Ballad of the Sad Caf辿, is quintessentially McCullers. Set in the South with a cast melancholy characters. Can you get more McCullers!? The prose is dripping with sand and dust. Even though this story takes up roughly half of the whole book, it wasn't my favourite in the collection. I loved Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland. It's a fun little story imbued Chekhovian humour and with a title like that, I'd be surprised if it didn't inspire Wes Anderson at some point in his career. This collection is very good. Most of the latter stories break with your preconceived image of McCullers' plots. They show a precise humour and an eye for the inane. McCullers was a Gothic chameleon. ]]> 3.74 1951 The Ballad of the Sad Caf辿
author: Carson McCullers
name: Barry
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/19
date added: 2020/12/15
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In this collection of short stories, Carson McCullers shows that not only can she break you with her prose but she can do it with only a couple of short pages. The main story, The Ballad of the Sad Caf辿, is quintessentially McCullers. Set in the South with a cast melancholy characters. Can you get more McCullers!? The prose is dripping with sand and dust. Even though this story takes up roughly half of the whole book, it wasn't my favourite in the collection. I loved Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland. It's a fun little story imbued Chekhovian humour and with a title like that, I'd be surprised if it didn't inspire Wes Anderson at some point in his career. This collection is very good. Most of the latter stories break with your preconceived image of McCullers' plots. They show a precise humour and an eye for the inane. McCullers was a Gothic chameleon.
]]> Mildred Pierce 11870673 288 James M. Cain 1780220723 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I seem to really enjoy this genre for some reason.

I came to Mildred Pierce for two reasons, one) the Joan Crawford film and two) look that's my name! Overall I did enjoy this book. You actually care about the characters, especially Mildred, which I find quite rare. The relationship between her and Veda is a legendary in the book as it is on film. I'd definitely recommend this for fans of the film and for new readers of the story. It's a hard-boiled classic. ]]> 3.73 1941 Mildred Pierce
author: James M. Cain
name: Barry
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1941
rating: 3
read at: 2015/06/20
date added: 2020/05/28
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I'd include this book in the genre I like to call, "Middle Class White Women Have A Really Bad Time". Other works in this genre include, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I seem to really enjoy this genre for some reason.

I came to Mildred Pierce for two reasons, one) the Joan Crawford film and two) look that's my name! Overall I did enjoy this book. You actually care about the characters, especially Mildred, which I find quite rare. The relationship between her and Veda is a legendary in the book as it is on film. I'd definitely recommend this for fans of the film and for new readers of the story. It's a hard-boiled classic.
]]> Submission 24493750
And he is not alone. As the 2022 Presidential election approaches, two candidates emerge as favourites: Marine Le Pen of the Front National, and Muhammed Ben Abbes of the nascent Muslim Fraternity. Forming a controversial alliance with the mainstream parties, Ben Abbes sweeps to power, and overnight the country is transformed. Islamic law comes into force: women are veiled, polygamy is encouraged, and, for Fran巽ois, life is set on a new course.

Submission is both a devastating satire and a profound meditation on isolation, faith and love. It is a startling new work by one of the most provocative and prescient novelists of today.]]> 256 Michel Houellebecq 1785150243 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015
I really quite enjoyed this novel in the beginning. The translation is very good, the whole thing flows well. The musings of Fran巽ois are interesting if highly conceited and insufferable. I liked being with him however, he somehow drew me in. The problem with his novel is that it is plagued with long and boring passages every couple of pages that really take you out of the work. Luckily, the good and the bad is 50/50 throughout and I can say that this is overall a good and somewhat memorable book. ]]> 3.67 2015 Submission
author: Michel Houellebecq
name: Barry
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/31
date added: 2020/03/22
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Set in Paris in 2022, a controversial Muslim leader wins the presidential election and introduces Islamic law throughout the country. An academic, Fran巽ois, now has to try and deal with a Paris in which all women must be veiled and his job at the Islamic University of Paris-Sorbonne is in jeopardy.

I really quite enjoyed this novel in the beginning. The translation is very good, the whole thing flows well. The musings of Fran巽ois are interesting if highly conceited and insufferable. I liked being with him however, he somehow drew me in. The problem with his novel is that it is plagued with long and boring passages every couple of pages that really take you out of the work. Luckily, the good and the bad is 50/50 throughout and I can say that this is overall a good and somewhat memorable book.
]]> <![CDATA[Four Major Plays: A Doll's House / Ghosts / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder]]> 3399467 A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder.]]> 384 Henrik Ibsen 0199536198 Barry 3 19th-century, read-in-2015 A Doll's House

There's a reason why this is one of the most performed plays in the world. It's just wonderful. I mean, who doesn't love that ending? It's so subversive (especially for the time). This is the best play in this collection.

Ghosts

I didn't really care for this one. It bored me. I understand its inclusion because of the slight parallels with A Doll's House but otherwise it isn't anything spectacular.

Hedda Gabler �

I went into this book thinking that Hedda Gabler was going to be the one that blew me away because well... it's Hedda Gabler. However while I did enjoy it, it wasn't exactly amazing. It reminded me a lot of Chekhov's The Seagull (which I think is a better play) and that comparison may have affected my enjoyment of this work.

The Master Builder

My favourite play from this collection. It's a lot more "talkie" than the others and I really enjoy that. While the ending is a bit... odd, it's still wonderfully tragic and stayed in my mind longer than the other three plays.]]> 4.06 1879 Four Major Plays: A Doll's House / Ghosts / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder
author: Henrik Ibsen
name: Barry
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1879
rating: 3
read at: 2015/06/26
date added: 2019/07/09
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
A Doll's House

There's a reason why this is one of the most performed plays in the world. It's just wonderful. I mean, who doesn't love that ending? It's so subversive (especially for the time). This is the best play in this collection.

Ghosts

I didn't really care for this one. It bored me. I understand its inclusion because of the slight parallels with A Doll's House but otherwise it isn't anything spectacular.

Hedda Gabler �

I went into this book thinking that Hedda Gabler was going to be the one that blew me away because well... it's Hedda Gabler. However while I did enjoy it, it wasn't exactly amazing. It reminded me a lot of Chekhov's The Seagull (which I think is a better play) and that comparison may have affected my enjoyment of this work.

The Master Builder

My favourite play from this collection. It's a lot more "talkie" than the others and I really enjoy that. While the ending is a bit... odd, it's still wonderfully tragic and stayed in my mind longer than the other three plays.
]]> Serjeant Musgrave's Dance 1570164
The work follows three privates in the British Army and their sergeant, all of whom are deserters from a foreign imperialist war. Serjeant Musgrave and his men, Hurst, Sparky and Attercliffe, come to a northern English coal mining town in 1879. The community is in the grip of a coal strike and cut off by winter snow. The one means of reaching the town is by canal barge. They arrive in the company of the Bargee, a foul-mouthed, disrespectful individual who teases and abuses everyone, especially those in authority. In the local inn the soldiers meet Mrs. Hitchcock, who runs the inn, and the barmaid Annie. The soldiers are greeted by the mayor, parson and constable, who ask them to recruit men in hopes of alleviating some of the town's unemployment as a way to rid the town of their economic dead weight. Musgrave pretends that this is indeed his goal, and asks Mrs. Hitchcock about Billy Hicks, a dead fellow soldier from the mining town. It is revealed that Billy was the father of Annie's illegitimate child, but the baby died, and Annie's sanity has suffered from the loss of both Billy and her child.]]> 150 John Arden 0413492605 Barry 2 3.35 1959 Serjeant Musgrave's Dance
author: John Arden
name: Barry
average rating: 3.35
book published: 1959
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/02
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
What a strange but poignant play. There are some images in this that will take a while to forget. However, it is quite slow, somewhat over-long and the songs get tiring by the end of Act 1. *shrugs*
]]> Roots 8881328 72 Arnold Wesker 0573113777 Barry 2 Look Back in Anger. Social realism, long speeches, class divides. I think I'd categorise this under, "must have been more effective in its day".]]> 3.38 1958 Roots
author: Arnold Wesker
name: Barry
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1958
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
In a famed play from the "kitchen sink" period, Wesker attempts to portray the dichotomy of the city and the country through young Beatie Bryant. This play is typical of works which followed in the aftermath of Look Back in Anger. Social realism, long speeches, class divides. I think I'd categorise this under, "must have been more effective in its day".
]]> Antony and Cleopatra 104837 336 William Shakespeare 0743482859 Barry 3 3.70 1606 Antony and Cleopatra
author: William Shakespeare
name: Barry
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1606
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/30
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 17th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
Mark Antony is a real pain in the asp.
]]> As You Like It 42607 As You Like It with delight. Its characters are brilliant conversationalists, including the princesses Rosalind and Celia and their Fool, Touchstone. Soon after Rosalind and Orlando meet and fall in love, the princesses and Touchstone go into exile in the Forest of Arden, where they find new conversational partners. Duke Frederick, younger brother to Duke Senior, has overthrown his brother and forced him to live homeless in the forest with his courtiers, including the cynical Jaques. Orlando, whose older brother Oliver plotted his death, has fled there, too.

Recent scholars have also grounded the play in the issues of its time. These include primogeniture, passing property from a father to his oldest son. As You Like It depicts intense conflict between brothers, exposing the human suffering that primogeniture entails. Another perspective concerns cross-dressing. Most of Orlandos courtship of Rosalind takes place while Rosalind is disguised as a man, Ganymede.� At her urging, Orlando pretends that Ganymede is his beloved Rosalind. But as the epilogue reveals, the sixteenth-century actor playing Rosalind was male, following the practice of the time. In other words, a boy played a girl playing a boy pretending to be a girl.]]> 263 William Shakespeare 074348486X Barry 3 Monsieur Jaques, cest moi. 3.81 1599 As You Like It
author: William Shakespeare
name: Barry
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1599
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/13
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 16th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
Monsieur Jaques, cest moi.
]]> The Birthday Party 74090
The Birthday Party was first performed in 1958 and is now a modern classic. Produced and studied throughout the world.]]> 96 Harold Pinter 0571160786 Barry 4 The Birthday Party is the play I'd give to someone if I really wanted them to be scared shitless by Harold Pinter. There is no easy way into Pinter so it's best to just crash-land into his work. This play contains everything that one may describe as "Pinteresque". Long pauses. Overwhelming dread. Near deathly tension. And, of course, humour. Dark, dark humour.

Stanley is a lodger in a house in a seaside town. He lives with the owners of the house. They are simply folk. One day two men turn up at the house and brutally interrogate Stanley until he is reduced to a child-like vegetative state. Wait. What? Yeah. But there's jokes as well.

If you are in any way familiar with my humour then you've probably already guessed that I adore this play. Pinter is one of those writers who I feel would be hilarious at funerals. In that his work is so out-there that it almost transcends life and death and everything takes place in a near purgatorial setting. The drum beat, the fricative verbal tennis matches, everything in this play feels like it's counting down to something. Tick follows tock follows tick. But then Pinter does what Pinter does best and stops. Is the ending satisfying? Fuck no. And that's why I love it. Ugh, Pinter you beautiful man.]]> 3.73 1957 The Birthday Party
author: Harold Pinter
name: Barry
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2015/10/06
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
The Birthday Party is the play I'd give to someone if I really wanted them to be scared shitless by Harold Pinter. There is no easy way into Pinter so it's best to just crash-land into his work. This play contains everything that one may describe as "Pinteresque". Long pauses. Overwhelming dread. Near deathly tension. And, of course, humour. Dark, dark humour.

Stanley is a lodger in a house in a seaside town. He lives with the owners of the house. They are simply folk. One day two men turn up at the house and brutally interrogate Stanley until he is reduced to a child-like vegetative state. Wait. What? Yeah. But there's jokes as well.

If you are in any way familiar with my humour then you've probably already guessed that I adore this play. Pinter is one of those writers who I feel would be hilarious at funerals. In that his work is so out-there that it almost transcends life and death and everything takes place in a near purgatorial setting. The drum beat, the fricative verbal tennis matches, everything in this play feels like it's counting down to something. Tick follows tock follows tick. But then Pinter does what Pinter does best and stops. Is the ending satisfying? Fuck no. And that's why I love it. Ugh, Pinter you beautiful man.
]]> <![CDATA[Look Back in Anger (Penguin Plays)]]> 859495 Electrifying in its urgency, cauterizing in its wit, this play blasted a gaping hole in the conventions of British drama.

Jimmy Porter plays trumpet badly. He browbeats his flatmate, terrorizes his wife, and is not above sleeping with her best friend-who loathes Jimmy almost as much as he loathes himself. Yet this working-class Hamlet, the original Angry Young Man, is one of the most mesmerizing characters ever to burst onto a stage, a malevolently vital, volcanically articulate internal exile in the dreary, dreaming Siberia of postwar England.

First produced in 1956, Look Back in Anger launched a revolution in the English theater. Savagely, sadly, and always impolitely, it compels readers and audiences to acknowledge the hidden currents of rottenness and rage in what used to be called "the good life."]]> 96 John Osborne 0140481753 Barry 3 Look Back in Anger is the play that literally changed everything in British theatre. I'm currently doing a module in uni on British theatre of the 1960s and my lecturer keeps referring to Look Back in Anger. Not five minutes will go by before she mentions Look Back in Anger and just how important it was. So I thought to myself, "hmmm, I probably should read Look Back in Anger.

So, we have Jimmy, a loud, rude, obnoxious, violent, angry young man. He's the main guy. The play's all about how awful he is. We observe his utter abhorrence for over two hours but somehow in that time John Osborne manages to make us feel for him. It's reminiscent of how Nabokov makes us actually really care about Humbert Humbert even though he is literally a pedophile. It's first-class manipulation and it's fucking astounding.

As for the overall plot, there isn't much to say. It's a pillar of kitchen-sink drama, a genre which usually puts emotion over storyline. Many parts of the play dragged due to the dialogue being made up of lengthy monologues that essentially talk about nothing and I really felt that the first act was just never going to end. If you like really talky plays however, you'll love this. I'm sort of ambivalent towards the whole play but at least I now have some clue as to what the hell my lecturer is harping on about...]]> 3.56 1956 Look Back in Anger (Penguin Plays)
author: John Osborne
name: Barry
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1956
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/05
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
Look Back in Anger is the play that literally changed everything in British theatre. I'm currently doing a module in uni on British theatre of the 1960s and my lecturer keeps referring to Look Back in Anger. Not five minutes will go by before she mentions Look Back in Anger and just how important it was. So I thought to myself, "hmmm, I probably should read Look Back in Anger.

So, we have Jimmy, a loud, rude, obnoxious, violent, angry young man. He's the main guy. The play's all about how awful he is. We observe his utter abhorrence for over two hours but somehow in that time John Osborne manages to make us feel for him. It's reminiscent of how Nabokov makes us actually really care about Humbert Humbert even though he is literally a pedophile. It's first-class manipulation and it's fucking astounding.

As for the overall plot, there isn't much to say. It's a pillar of kitchen-sink drama, a genre which usually puts emotion over storyline. Many parts of the play dragged due to the dialogue being made up of lengthy monologues that essentially talk about nothing and I really felt that the first act was just never going to end. If you like really talky plays however, you'll love this. I'm sort of ambivalent towards the whole play but at least I now have some clue as to what the hell my lecturer is harping on about...
]]> Richard III 42060
Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
Scene-by-scene plot summaries
A key to famous lines and phrases
An introduction to reading Shakespeare's language
An essay by an outstanding scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library's vast holdings of rare books
Essay by Phyllis Rackin
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit .]]> 369 William Shakespeare 0743482840 Barry 3 3.83 1593 Richard III
author: William Shakespeare
name: Barry
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1593
rating: 3
read at: 2015/09/01
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 16th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
Ah good old Dick III. Killing yer husbands, killing yer children. An all-round family guy.
]]> <![CDATA[Three Dublin Plays: The Shadow of a Gunman / Juno and the Paycock / The Plough and the Stars]]> 570738
Three early plays by Sean O'Casey--arguably his three greatest--demonstrate vividly O'Casey's ability to convey the reality of life and the depth of human emotion, specifically in Dublin before and during the Irish civil war of 1922-23, but, truly, throughout the known universe. In mirroring the lives of the Dublin poor, from the tenement dwellers in The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock to the bricklayer, street vendor, and charwoman in The Plough and the Stars , Sean O'Casey conveys with urgency and eloquence the tiny details that create a total character as well as the terrors, large and small, that the constant threat of political violence inevitably brings. As Seamus Heaney has written, "O'Casey's characters are both down to earth and larger than life . . . His democratic genius was at one with his tragic understanding, and his recoil from tyranny and his compassion for the oppressed were an essential--as opposed to a moral and thematic--part of his art."

A new production of Juno and the Paycock will transfer from the Donmar Theatre in London to New York in September 2000.]]> 272 Se叩n O'Casey 0571195520 Barry 3 The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock years ago but I hadn't read The Plough and the Stars until now. All three plays are quite good. I love how O'Casey writes completely in vernacular, it gives the plays a downright sense of nationalistic importance. Overall it's a good collection. ]]> 3.85 1969 Three Dublin Plays: The Shadow of a Gunman / Juno and the Paycock / The Plough and the Stars
author: Se叩n O'Casey
name: Barry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/29
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, plays
review:
I'd read The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock years ago but I hadn't read The Plough and the Stars until now. All three plays are quite good. I love how O'Casey writes completely in vernacular, it gives the plays a downright sense of nationalistic importance. Overall it's a good collection.
]]> CLOUD 9 (playscript) 1220123 92 Caryl Churchill 1854590901 Barry 3 3.27 1979 CLOUD 9 (playscript)
author: Caryl Churchill
name: Barry
average rating: 3.27
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2015/02/10
date added: 2018/03/18
shelves: read-in-2015, 20th-century, plays
review:
A hilarious and incredibly raunchy play from one of Britain's pre-eminent playwrights Caryl Churchill. Packed to the brim with taboo-breaking moments and played out by a cast of gender bending and race transcending characters, Cloud Nine is a play that will make you think, and gag, and look away, and laugh, and feel awkward. You definitely won't forget it easily.
]]> Female Eunuch 822847 397 Germaine Greer Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Disclaimer: Ignore this review. Greer hates trans people.

The Female Eunuch is one of the touchstone texts of second-wave feminism. I'll admit, I'm terrified of Germaine Greer. She's on telly quite often and my god she scares the shit out of me. However, through reading her most famous book I now see that she and I are quite similar. We're both very angry and hate a lot of things. I adore her humour and incredibly condescending prose, it's quite a refreshing read for a text that was written 45 years ago.

This book basically Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Feminism (But Were Afraid to Ask). While it is dry at parts, overall the book is enjoyable and informative. I would recommend this for anyone who wants to know more about second-wave feminism and feminism as a whole really.]]> 3.51 1970 Female Eunuch
author: Germaine Greer
name: Barry
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1970
rating: 3
read at: 2015/06/01
date added: 2018/03/08
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Disclaimer: Ignore this review. Greer hates trans people.

The Female Eunuch is one of the touchstone texts of second-wave feminism. I'll admit, I'm terrified of Germaine Greer. She's on telly quite often and my god she scares the shit out of me. However, through reading her most famous book I now see that she and I are quite similar. We're both very angry and hate a lot of things. I adore her humour and incredibly condescending prose, it's quite a refreshing read for a text that was written 45 years ago.

This book basically Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Feminism (But Were Afraid to Ask). While it is dry at parts, overall the book is enjoyable and informative. I would recommend this for anyone who wants to know more about second-wave feminism and feminism as a whole really.
]]> Alexander's Bridge 753494
'Cather makes a world which is burningly alive, sometimes lovely, often tragic' HELEN DUNMORE

'She is undoubtedly one of the twentieth century's greatest American writers' OBSERVER

'Something had broken loose in him of which he knew nothing except that it was sullen and powerful, that it wrung and tortured him.'

Bartley Alexander, an engineer famous for the audacious structure of his North American bridges is at the height of his reputation. He has a distinguished and beautiful wife and an enviable Boston home. Then, on a trip to London, he meets again the Irish actress he had once loved. Their affair resumes and Alexander finds himself caught in a transatlantic tug of emotions - between the wife who has supported his career with understanding and strength and Hilda, whose impulsiveness and generosity restore to him the passion and energy of his youth. Alongside this personal dilemma, there are ominous signs of strain in his professional life . . .

in this, her first novel, originally published in 1912, Willa Cather sympathetically explores the struggle between opposing sides of the self which was to become a hallmark of her craft.

Willa Cather (1937-1947), one of America's finest writers, is the author of twelve novels.]]> 176 Willa Cather 1853811637 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Alexander's Bridge was my first novel, and does not deal with the kind of subject-matter in which I now find myself most at home." She spends the rest of the preface apologising for its existence. I feel Cather is far too tough on herself for this novel, because I rather enjoyed it.

The plot is very simple. A man has an affair and can't live with it. That's basically it. This novel has the unique claim of the main character being a bridge-maker, can't say I've come across that before. However what this novel lacks in plot, it makes up for in sheer enjoyability. Many reviewers overlook the basic experience of enjoying a book. When I sat down and read this novel it flowed before me. I was enthralled for the whole journey. I must give props to Cather for constructing such a smooth narrative and for creating such a crazy ending, that was great. Altogether this is a fine novel that overcomes its plot problems and leaves you rather content.]]> 3.12 1912 Alexander's Bridge
author: Willa Cather
name: Barry
average rating: 3.12
book published: 1912
rating: 3
read at: 2015/09/01
date added: 2017/11/29
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In the preface to this edition Willa Cather writes, "Alexander's Bridge was my first novel, and does not deal with the kind of subject-matter in which I now find myself most at home." She spends the rest of the preface apologising for its existence. I feel Cather is far too tough on herself for this novel, because I rather enjoyed it.

The plot is very simple. A man has an affair and can't live with it. That's basically it. This novel has the unique claim of the main character being a bridge-maker, can't say I've come across that before. However what this novel lacks in plot, it makes up for in sheer enjoyability. Many reviewers overlook the basic experience of enjoying a book. When I sat down and read this novel it flowed before me. I was enthralled for the whole journey. I must give props to Cather for constructing such a smooth narrative and for creating such a crazy ending, that was great. Altogether this is a fine novel that overcomes its plot problems and leaves you rather content.
]]> The Edible Woman 985756
'Margaret Atwood not only has a sense of humour, she has wit and style in abundance ... a joy to read' Good Housekeeping

'Written with a brilliant angry energy' Observer

'A witty, elegant, generous and patient writer' Punch]]> 354 Margaret Atwood Barry 2
The Edible Woman was Atwood's first novel, and thus I must treat it like a first novel. Atwood was twenty-six when she wrote this, and it reads like it. The novel presents itself as a tale of a women who is faced with the awful prospect of marriage. The thought of her imminent nuptials causes Marian, our protagonist, to start viewing foods as living entities. It first starts with meat, Marian can only see the animal it once was on her plate. Then it becomes far worse. She cannot eat carrots because she can only imagine the great pain it must have caused them to be ripped from the ground. She peers into a boiled egg and all she sees is a yellow eye staring back at her (very Bataille!). For Marian, eating any food at all becomes a sort of cannibalism.

However, I wish that this is what the novel actually is. The actual 'edible woman' part of The Edible Woman does not happen until roughly two-thirds into the novel. Instead, most of this novel is just us following Marian as she goes to work, or visits to the launderette, or goes from door to door asking people to fill out surveys. It can get boring and it puts you in the strange position of actually wanting Marian to hurry up and have her mental breakdown already. Thankfully Atwood created the character of Ainsley, Marian's flatmate, who decides that she wants to have a baby but only so she can raise it herself away from the damaging influence of a father figure. Due to these kind of themes throughout the novel, Atwood has referred to the book as a proto-feminist work. I suppose Ainsley could be seen as a precursor to Val from Marilyn French's The Women's Room.

The most disappointing aspect of this novel however is where it ends up going. I cannot discuss this part in detail as it would be a spoiler but, for those who have read it, I detest Duncan.

So, after my re-read I've decided to take a star away from my original review. It is now a two-star novel, meaning it's alright but I don't recommend unless you're an Atwood completest.

Original review from 3/1/15
Well this is a novel that is fecund with originality. I really enjoyed this. Basically imagine if The Bell Jar was actually good and readable, then you'd have this. I really admire Atwood's decision to switch between third- and first-person narration. It's very clever and works marvellously. In fact this whole novel is very clever and marvellous. What a wonderful way to begin my #YearofAtwood.]]> 3.61 1969 The Edible Woman
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Barry
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1969
rating: 2
read at: 2017/06/25
date added: 2017/06/28
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015, read-in-2017
review:
I decided to re-read this because its white spine always calls my attention next to the black spines of Austen and Bront谷. My review from two and a half years ago, to paraphrase Talking Heads, seems to talk a lot but not say anything.

The Edible Woman was Atwood's first novel, and thus I must treat it like a first novel. Atwood was twenty-six when she wrote this, and it reads like it. The novel presents itself as a tale of a women who is faced with the awful prospect of marriage. The thought of her imminent nuptials causes Marian, our protagonist, to start viewing foods as living entities. It first starts with meat, Marian can only see the animal it once was on her plate. Then it becomes far worse. She cannot eat carrots because she can only imagine the great pain it must have caused them to be ripped from the ground. She peers into a boiled egg and all she sees is a yellow eye staring back at her (very Bataille!). For Marian, eating any food at all becomes a sort of cannibalism.

However, I wish that this is what the novel actually is. The actual 'edible woman' part of The Edible Woman does not happen until roughly two-thirds into the novel. Instead, most of this novel is just us following Marian as she goes to work, or visits to the launderette, or goes from door to door asking people to fill out surveys. It can get boring and it puts you in the strange position of actually wanting Marian to hurry up and have her mental breakdown already. Thankfully Atwood created the character of Ainsley, Marian's flatmate, who decides that she wants to have a baby but only so she can raise it herself away from the damaging influence of a father figure. Due to these kind of themes throughout the novel, Atwood has referred to the book as a proto-feminist work. I suppose Ainsley could be seen as a precursor to Val from Marilyn French's The Women's Room.

The most disappointing aspect of this novel however is where it ends up going. I cannot discuss this part in detail as it would be a spoiler but, for those who have read it, I detest Duncan.

So, after my re-read I've decided to take a star away from my original review. It is now a two-star novel, meaning it's alright but I don't recommend unless you're an Atwood completest.

Original review from 3/1/15
Well this is a novel that is fecund with originality. I really enjoyed this. Basically imagine if The Bell Jar was actually good and readable, then you'd have this. I really admire Atwood's decision to switch between third- and first-person narration. It's very clever and works marvellously. In fact this whole novel is very clever and marvellous. What a wonderful way to begin my #YearofAtwood.
]]> The Elegance of the Hedgehog 6238269
Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Ren辿e lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.

By turn moving and hilarious, this unusual novel became the French publishing phenomenon of 2007: from an initial print run of 3,000 to sales of over 2 million in hardback. It took 35 weeks to reach the number one bestseller spot but has now spent longer in the French bestseller lists than Dan Brown.]]> 320 Muriel Barbery 1906040184 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 years. That's so typically me. I'll buy a book tomorrow but I probably won't read it for at least a year. I don't know why I do this because, as is the case with this novel, I seem to be putting off reading books that I quite enjoy.

This is the first book I've read this year which teeters on the edge between the three and four star rating. I enjoyed all the characters in here. Of course I loved Ren辿e. I saw a lot of myself in her. Which is odd because she is a French woman in her fifties. I also liked little Paloma even if her knowledge is quite unrealistically beyond her years. But what do I know? Maybe all twelve-year-old French girls have a throughout understanding of the psychoanalytical studies of Freud, the works of Tolstoy, and Cartesian phenomenology. It's a great cast, in fact every character in this novel is ostentatiously pretentious and it is WONDERFUL.

Reading through reviews on here I see that a lot of people are complaining that this novel is full of baffling philosophical musings. I perhaps have an advantage here because I have literally just finished a year of studying philosophy in university so I was somewhat familiar with the concepts and names that Ren辿e was dropping. However I do wish that in her accounts of William of Ockham that Barbery would have used his famous razor to cut down some of her dry and overlong ramblings.

So yeah, this has been one of the most enjoyable books I've read thus far this year. The level of pretentiousness was right up my alley (*winky emoji*). It definitely has one of the most perfect endings to a novel that I've read in recent months and for that I applaud it. However I did feel that it lacked depth and heart, I blame this on the stilted half-epistolary/half-first-person narrative style that Barbery employs. Overall, I would recommend it to people. Well... people who'd understand the allusions and references peppered throughout the novel. Let's just say that if this novel were a sitcom it'd be Frasier.]]> 3.55 2006 The Elegance of the Hedgehog
author: Muriel Barbery
name: Barry
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/08
date added: 2016/08/29
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
I've had this on my bookshelf for years. That's so typically me. I'll buy a book tomorrow but I probably won't read it for at least a year. I don't know why I do this because, as is the case with this novel, I seem to be putting off reading books that I quite enjoy.

This is the first book I've read this year which teeters on the edge between the three and four star rating. I enjoyed all the characters in here. Of course I loved Ren辿e. I saw a lot of myself in her. Which is odd because she is a French woman in her fifties. I also liked little Paloma even if her knowledge is quite unrealistically beyond her years. But what do I know? Maybe all twelve-year-old French girls have a throughout understanding of the psychoanalytical studies of Freud, the works of Tolstoy, and Cartesian phenomenology. It's a great cast, in fact every character in this novel is ostentatiously pretentious and it is WONDERFUL.

Reading through reviews on here I see that a lot of people are complaining that this novel is full of baffling philosophical musings. I perhaps have an advantage here because I have literally just finished a year of studying philosophy in university so I was somewhat familiar with the concepts and names that Ren辿e was dropping. However I do wish that in her accounts of William of Ockham that Barbery would have used his famous razor to cut down some of her dry and overlong ramblings.

So yeah, this has been one of the most enjoyable books I've read thus far this year. The level of pretentiousness was right up my alley (*winky emoji*). It definitely has one of the most perfect endings to a novel that I've read in recent months and for that I applaud it. However I did feel that it lacked depth and heart, I blame this on the stilted half-epistolary/half-first-person narrative style that Barbery employs. Overall, I would recommend it to people. Well... people who'd understand the allusions and references peppered throughout the novel. Let's just say that if this novel were a sitcom it'd be Frasier.
]]> <![CDATA[Notes from Underground and The Double]]> 3397709
Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky's groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter irony, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the 'anthill' of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence 'underground'. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who looks exactly like him - his double, perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly tragicomic study of human consciousness.

Ronald Wilks's extraordinary new translation is accompanied here by an introduction by Robert Louis Jackson discussing these pivotal works in the context of Dostoyevsky's life and times. This edition also contains a chronology, bibliography, table of ranks and notes on each work.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow. From 1849-54 he lived in a convict prison, and in later years his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt. His other works available in Penguin Classics include Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and Demons. If you enjoyed Notes from Underground and The Double, you might like Dostoyevsky's Demons, also available in Penguin Classics.

'Notes from Underground, with its mood of intellectual irony and alienation, can be seen as the first modern novel ... That sense of meaninglessness of existence that runs through much of twentieth-century writing - from Conrad and Kafka, to Beckett and beyond - starts in Dostoyevsky's work' Malcolm Bradbury]]> 291 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0140455124 Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015 Notes from Underground �

This was the more enjoyable work in this collection. I enjoyed the narrator's pithy voice while he went over the events which lead to his "living underground". It also contains Dostoyevsky's infamously morbid black humour which has you smiling at the most desolate of images. I strangely found myself relating with the narrator which probably says a lot about my outlook on life.


The Double �

Good god this story is 150-pages long and it took me two months to get through. Seriously. I read Crime and Punishment in 24 hours but this novella took me longer to read than Dostoyevsky probably took to write it. It is a juvenile piece of melodramatic garbage, a black smudge on Dostoyevsky's almost perfect oeuvre. Its inclusion in this collection baffles me. The Double was written when Dostoyevsky was only 25 while Notes from Underground and his other major works were written when he was in his 40s and 50s. He was clearly not a wunderkind. Even at the beginning of this Penguin edition it even notes that The Double was not successful when it was first published. I can hardly wonder why. It's so boring that it gives solitary confinement a run for its money. Now we know why the narrator of Notes from Underground was so bored, he has to share the same book with the characters from The Double. Poor guy. ]]> 3.99 1864 Notes from Underground and The Double
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Barry
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1864
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/07
date added: 2015/12/23
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Notes from Underground �

This was the more enjoyable work in this collection. I enjoyed the narrator's pithy voice while he went over the events which lead to his "living underground". It also contains Dostoyevsky's infamously morbid black humour which has you smiling at the most desolate of images. I strangely found myself relating with the narrator which probably says a lot about my outlook on life.


The Double �

Good god this story is 150-pages long and it took me two months to get through. Seriously. I read Crime and Punishment in 24 hours but this novella took me longer to read than Dostoyevsky probably took to write it. It is a juvenile piece of melodramatic garbage, a black smudge on Dostoyevsky's almost perfect oeuvre. Its inclusion in this collection baffles me. The Double was written when Dostoyevsky was only 25 while Notes from Underground and his other major works were written when he was in his 40s and 50s. He was clearly not a wunderkind. Even at the beginning of this Penguin edition it even notes that The Double was not successful when it was first published. I can hardly wonder why. It's so boring that it gives solitary confinement a run for its money. Now we know why the narrator of Notes from Underground was so bored, he has to share the same book with the characters from The Double. Poor guy.
]]> 10:04 20613582 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater.

A writer whose work Jonathan Franzen has called "hilarious . . . cracklingly intelligent . . . and original in every sentence," Lerner captures what it's like to be alive now, during the twilight of an empire, when the difficulty of imagining a future is changing our relationship to both the present and the past.]]> 256 Ben Lerner 0865478104 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.78 2014 10:04
author: Ben Lerner
name: Barry
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2015/12/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:

]]> Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1) 4954833 Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm T坦ib鱈n's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.]]> 262 Colm T坦ib鱈n 1439138311 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.71 2009 Brooklyn (Eilis Lacey, #1)
author: Colm T坦ib鱈n
name: Barry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2015/12/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:

]]> <![CDATA[That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana]]> 596986
Italo Calvino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Alberto Moravia all considered That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana to be the great modern Italian novel. Unquestionably, it is a work of universal significance and protean genius: a rich social novel, a comic opera, an act of political resistance, a blazing feat of baroque wordplay, and a haunting story of life and death in the Eternal City.]]> 388 Carlo Emilio Gadda 1590172221 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.62 1957 That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana
author: Carlo Emilio Gadda
name: Barry
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1957
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/08
date added: 2015/11/08
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
This novel is the perfect example of "lost in translation". Nearly every page has a footnote which has to explain a joke that doesn't work in English or tell you that Gadda is basically subtweeting Mussolini here. I'm sure in its original language this novel is a masterful critique of Italian politics that inspired both Calvino and Pasolini. However, in English, this novel is like walking into a joke and only hearing the punchline.
]]> The Year of the Runaways 17824793
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize
The Guardian: The Best Novels of 2015
The Independent: Literary Fiction of the Year 2015

Three young men, and one unforgettable woman, come together in a journey from India to England, where they hope to begin something newto support their families; to build their futures; to show their worth; to escape the past. They have almost no idea what awaits them.

In a dilapidated shared house in Sheffield, Tarlochan, a former rickshaw driver, will say nothing about his life in Bihar. Avtar and Randeep are middle-class boys whose families are slowly sinking into financial ruin, bound together by Avtar's secret. Randeep, in turn, has a visa wife across town, whose cupboards are full of her husband's clothes in case the immigration agents surprise her with a visit.

She is Narinder, and her story is the most surprising of them all.

The Year of the Runaways unfolds over the course of one shattering year in which the destinies of these four characters become irreversibly entwined, a year in which they are forced to rely on one another in ways they never could have foreseen, and in which their hopes of breaking free of the past are decimated by the punishing realities of immigrant life.

A novel of extraordinary ambition and authority, about what it means and what it costs to make a new lifeabout the capaciousness of the human spirit, and the resurrection of tenderness and humanity in the face of unspeakable suffering.]]> 468 Sunjeev Sahota 1447241649 Barry 1 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.82 2015 The Year of the Runaways
author: Sunjeev Sahota
name: Barry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at: 2015/11/07
date added: 2015/11/08
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
The plot follows a group of Indian men as they try to find work and livelihood in modern-day Britain. This whole novel is a character study of these men as we follow their lives for one year in 400ish pages. Sadly, this novel is so lacking in engaging prose or fully-rounded characters that one does not read this novel, they stare and wait for it to end. I did not care about any of these characters. There was nothing there to care about. And since I didn't care, I didn't derive any enjoyment from this. I was utterly bored from page 20 onwards. Such a pity.
]]> The Devil in the Flesh 10583000
The liaison soon becomes a scandal, and their friends, horrified and incredulous, refuse to accept what is happeningeven when the affair reaches its tragic climax.]]> 160 Raymond Radiguet 0141194642 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015
The Devil in the Flesh concerns the love affair between a 16y/o boy and a 19y/o married woman whose husband is away fighting in WWI. Like in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man we are presented with a highly precocious youth who seems to know the true meaning of life and love whilst in his mid-teens. The torrid love affair is depicted with all the difficulties and foibles that we find in many of these "forbidden love" novels that saturated 19th-century France. However this one differs because it feels fresh. One must remember that this was written by a teenager so the teenage voice of our main character is truly a teenage voice. This isn't some white guy in his mid-30s trying to depict teenagers having sex, this is an actual teenager writing about what he knows and through that we discover one of the most believable and relatable teenage voices in fiction.

Anyone who knows anything about Radiguet will realise that this is clearly a highly autobiographical work. Not only was he famous for his writing, he was also known for being quite... amorous. I mean, if Hemingway makes jokes about how much sex you have then you know you lead a pretty busy life. Thus the depiction of the affair is told through a highly eroticised eye. However, we're used to that, this is a French novel of course.

Overall this is a wonderful little novel of romance, secrecy and the erotic. I mean, the fact that this book written by a 19-year-old is published by Penguin Modern Classics kind of explains everything. It's a true French classic. I was shocked when I logged on here to write my review and I noticed that this hasn't even received 2,000 ratings. Ugh, the best ones are never read are they? So I will hold this book aloft and hope the world sees it. Radiguet isn't dead, every page keeps him alive. ]]> 3.69 1923 The Devil in the Flesh
author: Raymond Radiguet
name: Barry
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1923
rating: 4
read at: 2015/11/05
date added: 2015/11/06
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
One of the greatest tragedies of 20th century literature was the death of Raymond Radiguet in 1923. Having written this novel in his teens he finally succumbed to typhoid at the age of 20. In his short life he dazzled France's artistic community, becoming friends with Picasso and Jean Cocteau, even Coco Chanel arranged his funeral. When we discuss him we can only make assumptions and question what he would have become if he hadn't died so young. However, we can keep him alive by reading what little work he left us in his wake.

The Devil in the Flesh concerns the love affair between a 16y/o boy and a 19y/o married woman whose husband is away fighting in WWI. Like in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man we are presented with a highly precocious youth who seems to know the true meaning of life and love whilst in his mid-teens. The torrid love affair is depicted with all the difficulties and foibles that we find in many of these "forbidden love" novels that saturated 19th-century France. However this one differs because it feels fresh. One must remember that this was written by a teenager so the teenage voice of our main character is truly a teenage voice. This isn't some white guy in his mid-30s trying to depict teenagers having sex, this is an actual teenager writing about what he knows and through that we discover one of the most believable and relatable teenage voices in fiction.

Anyone who knows anything about Radiguet will realise that this is clearly a highly autobiographical work. Not only was he famous for his writing, he was also known for being quite... amorous. I mean, if Hemingway makes jokes about how much sex you have then you know you lead a pretty busy life. Thus the depiction of the affair is told through a highly eroticised eye. However, we're used to that, this is a French novel of course.

Overall this is a wonderful little novel of romance, secrecy and the erotic. I mean, the fact that this book written by a 19-year-old is published by Penguin Modern Classics kind of explains everything. It's a true French classic. I was shocked when I logged on here to write my review and I noticed that this hasn't even received 2,000 ratings. Ugh, the best ones are never read are they? So I will hold this book aloft and hope the world sees it. Radiguet isn't dead, every page keeps him alive.
]]> The Blackwater Lightship 965887 273 Colm T坦ib鱈n 0330389858 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 The Story of the Night, Colm T坦ib鱈n told the stories of men living with AIDS in New York in the late 80s. In The Blackwater Lightship, he transposes this storyline to Ireland in the late 90s, a vastly different setting. Helen, a school principal, discovers that her brother Declan is in hospital with AIDS. She has to work out how to tell their mother and grandmother about his diagnoses which he's apparently had "for years". Published just six years after Ireland's decision to decriminalise homosexuality, I feel that its effect was more profound and radical in the late 90s than it is now in 2015.

The Blackwater Lightship is somewhat of a companion to The Heather Blazing. They are both set in the same area with the Redmond's from Blazing turning up again here. Both novels perfectly encapsulate 90s Ireland, the sensibilities and the lavishness. Characters are school principals and lawyers, they live in noisy cities while their parents are held up in crumbing houses in the countryside. The clash of the nouveau riche with old Catholic Ireland play central parts in both novels. The character of the grandmother in The Blackwater Lightship is just fantastic, she binds these two generations together with flawless comical insights. She is the typical Irish grandmother, an embracer, a voice of solace.

I do think this is the superior novel to The Heather Blazing, it is a novel about family, whether they be nuclear or non-traditional. It's about who we really go to in our hours of need and who we share our lives with, whether we be stable or crumbling away, into the waves.]]> 3.85 1999 The Blackwater Lightship
author: Colm T坦ib鱈n
name: Barry
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2015/11/04
date added: 2015/11/05
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In The Story of the Night, Colm T坦ib鱈n told the stories of men living with AIDS in New York in the late 80s. In The Blackwater Lightship, he transposes this storyline to Ireland in the late 90s, a vastly different setting. Helen, a school principal, discovers that her brother Declan is in hospital with AIDS. She has to work out how to tell their mother and grandmother about his diagnoses which he's apparently had "for years". Published just six years after Ireland's decision to decriminalise homosexuality, I feel that its effect was more profound and radical in the late 90s than it is now in 2015.

The Blackwater Lightship is somewhat of a companion to The Heather Blazing. They are both set in the same area with the Redmond's from Blazing turning up again here. Both novels perfectly encapsulate 90s Ireland, the sensibilities and the lavishness. Characters are school principals and lawyers, they live in noisy cities while their parents are held up in crumbing houses in the countryside. The clash of the nouveau riche with old Catholic Ireland play central parts in both novels. The character of the grandmother in The Blackwater Lightship is just fantastic, she binds these two generations together with flawless comical insights. She is the typical Irish grandmother, an embracer, a voice of solace.

I do think this is the superior novel to The Heather Blazing, it is a novel about family, whether they be nuclear or non-traditional. It's about who we really go to in our hours of need and who we share our lives with, whether we be stable or crumbling away, into the waves.
]]> The Leopard 1320341 230 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 0099512157 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Downton Abbey but with less Maggie Smith and more Garibaldi. I'm conflicted about this one a bit because it does have some really boring parts but then it has some just magical passages. Eh, I liked it, but it's barely clinging on to those three stars. ]]> 3.93 1958 The Leopard
author: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
name: Barry
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1958
rating: 3
read at: 2015/11/04
date added: 2015/11/05
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
What do I think of this? On one hand I want to laud it as being a classic of Italian literature, imbued with the essence of Lermontov and breadth of Tolstoy. However, on the other hand, this is essentially just one long episode of Downton Abbey but with less Maggie Smith and more Garibaldi. I'm conflicted about this one a bit because it does have some really boring parts but then it has some just magical passages. Eh, I liked it, but it's barely clinging on to those three stars.
]]> By Night in Chile 1090606 130 Roberto Bola単o 1843430355 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 Death of Ivan Ilyich. A dying man recounts his earlier years spent with Neruda et al. This seems to be one of Bola単o's most popular works according to this website and I just cannot think why. The entire novel is one solid block of text, the narrator rambles a lot and it's basically a poor man's version of Amulet. While the prose is as excellent as ever I did find myself fading in and out of this narrative, nothing stuck. It's a pity really. Bola単o is better than this.]]> 3.42 2000 By Night in Chile
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2000
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/02
date added: 2015/11/02
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
This can be seen as Bola単o's Death of Ivan Ilyich. A dying man recounts his earlier years spent with Neruda et al. This seems to be one of Bola単o's most popular works according to this website and I just cannot think why. The entire novel is one solid block of text, the narrator rambles a lot and it's basically a poor man's version of Amulet. While the prose is as excellent as ever I did find myself fading in and out of this narrative, nothing stuck. It's a pity really. Bola単o is better than this.
]]> Antwerp 10813849 78 Roberto Bola単o 0330510584 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.19 2002 Antwerp
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2015/11/01
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Hmmm I've read this and I still have no clue what it is. This is just a pocket book. 78-pages in all. Split into 56 vignettes. You could call it a crime story but there is no evidence. There is a narrative but only Bola単o knows where that is. It's like a cake before entering the oven. All the ingredients are there, the flour, the baking powder, the eggs, but it's still not a cake. I think I liked this. I think.
]]> A Spool of Blue Thread 23346976 From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--now in the fiftieth year of her remarkable career--a brilliantly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel that reveals, as only she can, the very nature of a family's life.
"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog--is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions must be made about how best to look after them, and the fate of the house so lovingly built by Red's father. Brimming with the luminous insight, humor, and compassion that are Anne Tyler's hallmarks, this capacious novel takes us across three generations of the Whitshanks, their shared stories and long-held secrets, all the unguarded and richly lived moments that combine to define who and what they are as a family.]]> 358 Anne Tyler 0701189517 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.60 2015 A Spool of Blue Thread
author: Anne Tyler
name: Barry
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/10/31
date added: 2015/10/31
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
I haven't much to say about this. It's typical Tyler. It shows that she is still very much in charge of the "family saga" genre that she pioneered over fifty years ago. The first part is clearly where the life of this novel lays, the second half wobbles slightly. Anne Tyler is the literary equivalent of easy listening music.
]]> Only Ever Yours 22913648
Now, aged sixteen and in their final year at the School, they expect to be selected as companionswives to wealthy and powerful men. The alternativelife as a concubineis too horrible to contemplate.

But as the intensity of the final year takes hold, the pressure to remain perfect becomes almost unbearable. Isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beautyher only assetin peril.

And then, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.

Freida must fight for her futureeven if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known...]]> 392 Louise O'Neill 184866415X Barry 1 21st-century, read-in-2015 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a truly great work. Since its publication it has become a pillar of dystopian fict...

*knock on the door*

Oh, one sec.

"Yeah, come in!"

"Barry, I heard you speaking out loud whilst you were typing and you mentioned The Handmaid's Tale?"

"Yeah, I'm reviewing it right now"

"Uhm, Barry, you read and reviewed The Handmaid's Tale months ago..."

"No I didn't! I literally just finished reading it," I hold up the book. "Look!"

"Barry that says Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill"

"Ha ha, good one!" I look at the cover. "Oh god! What is this!? I swear I just read The Handmaid's Tale!"

"No, that's Only Ever Yours, the debut novel from Irish YA writer Louise O'Neill. Look, it has a Jeanette Winterson quote on the cover"

"I'm 99% sure I just read The Handmaid's Tale. I mean, it's the same book! Same setting, same characters, same message!"

"No, Barry"

"B... but..."

"Come along with me Barry. Come along, into the van"

I stand up and leave the room with this stranger. When he opens the front door the sunlight almost blinds me. I can hear someone cutting grass somewhere. He grabs hold on my sleeve and begins to drag me towards a black van. The birds begin to sing.]]> 3.82 2014 Only Ever Yours
author: Louise O'Neill
name: Barry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 1
read at: 2015/10/31
date added: 2015/10/31
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a truly great work. Since its publication it has become a pillar of dystopian fict...

*knock on the door*

Oh, one sec.

"Yeah, come in!"

"Barry, I heard you speaking out loud whilst you were typing and you mentioned The Handmaid's Tale?"

"Yeah, I'm reviewing it right now"

"Uhm, Barry, you read and reviewed The Handmaid's Tale months ago..."

"No I didn't! I literally just finished reading it," I hold up the book. "Look!"

"Barry that says Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill"

"Ha ha, good one!" I look at the cover. "Oh god! What is this!? I swear I just read The Handmaid's Tale!"

"No, that's Only Ever Yours, the debut novel from Irish YA writer Louise O'Neill. Look, it has a Jeanette Winterson quote on the cover"

"I'm 99% sure I just read The Handmaid's Tale. I mean, it's the same book! Same setting, same characters, same message!"

"No, Barry"

"B... but..."

"Come along with me Barry. Come along, into the van"

I stand up and leave the room with this stranger. When he opens the front door the sunlight almost blinds me. I can hear someone cutting grass somewhere. He grabs hold on my sleeve and begins to drag me towards a black van. The birds begin to sing.
]]> Room 8717323 402 Emma Donoghue 0330519026 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 Room tells the story of a five-year-old boy and his mother who are imprisoned in a room for seven years. With obvious references to the Fritzl case and numerous other infamous kidnapping cases, Room attempts to humanise the experiences of being a captive.

I really thought it was genius of Donoghue is choose the POV of a five-year-old boy for this novel. There is a wonderful subversive horror in a little boy narrating a rape scene. This novel takes so many disturbing leaps that I can only applaud the fact that this thing got published in its current form. The entire narrative is so depraved that it is almost reminiscent of Burroughs or Sade at certain points.

While I can only commend Donoghue's narrative, her plots are less than admirable. To be perfectly honest I felt that this entire novel ran out of steam by page 100, and this thing is 400-pages long. You honestly could skip 50-pages are some parts and it would have no effect on the plot. This was most evident in the scenes from the second half of the novel in which it can be said that it does all fall apart.

However, I did enjoy reading this, even if it was like watching a sinking ship. Donoghue is an accomplished writer, she manages to save it, if only barely.]]> 4.01 2010 Room
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Barry
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/28
date added: 2015/10/30
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Probably one of the most popular Irish novels of recent years, Room tells the story of a five-year-old boy and his mother who are imprisoned in a room for seven years. With obvious references to the Fritzl case and numerous other infamous kidnapping cases, Room attempts to humanise the experiences of being a captive.

I really thought it was genius of Donoghue is choose the POV of a five-year-old boy for this novel. There is a wonderful subversive horror in a little boy narrating a rape scene. This novel takes so many disturbing leaps that I can only applaud the fact that this thing got published in its current form. The entire narrative is so depraved that it is almost reminiscent of Burroughs or Sade at certain points.

While I can only commend Donoghue's narrative, her plots are less than admirable. To be perfectly honest I felt that this entire novel ran out of steam by page 100, and this thing is 400-pages long. You honestly could skip 50-pages are some parts and it would have no effect on the plot. This was most evident in the scenes from the second half of the novel in which it can be said that it does all fall apart.

However, I did enjoy reading this, even if it was like watching a sinking ship. Donoghue is an accomplished writer, she manages to save it, if only barely.
]]> Accidental Tourist 1083372 Anne Tyler 0701129867 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015
This is my first Anne Tyler, a writer who I've always relegated to someone that my mother might enjoy. To give context, my mother's reading habits consist of whatever was 3 for 2 in Tesco. However, since many people who I respect have given very positive reviews to Tyler in the past I thought I'd give her a go. Sadly, this didn't really do anything for me. I did enjoy the overall plot but the characters, especially Macon, were just such boring people. The type that you'd cross the road for if you saw them walking towards you. I found myself putting this novel down more than I picked it up. Its slice-of-life monotony is usually something that I look for in a novel but The Accidental Tourist just gave me... monotonous monotony. Oh well. I haven't given up all hope though. I'll definitely be visiting Anne Tyler again soon. ]]> 3.00 1985 Accidental Tourist
author: Anne Tyler
name: Barry
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1985
rating: 2
read at: 2015/10/27
date added: 2015/10/27
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Macon Leary writes travel companions under the nom de plume The Accidental Tourist. The irony is that while he helps thousands of people keep their lives together as they travel, he cannot help his own life from falling apart before his eyes.

This is my first Anne Tyler, a writer who I've always relegated to someone that my mother might enjoy. To give context, my mother's reading habits consist of whatever was 3 for 2 in Tesco. However, since many people who I respect have given very positive reviews to Tyler in the past I thought I'd give her a go. Sadly, this didn't really do anything for me. I did enjoy the overall plot but the characters, especially Macon, were just such boring people. The type that you'd cross the road for if you saw them walking towards you. I found myself putting this novel down more than I picked it up. Its slice-of-life monotony is usually something that I look for in a novel but The Accidental Tourist just gave me... monotonous monotony. Oh well. I haven't given up all hope though. I'll definitely be visiting Anne Tyler again soon.
]]> The Story of the Night 1450633 312 Colm T坦ib鱈n 0330340174 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015
Split into three parts, we follow Richard's journey from Argentina during the Falklands War, through the entire decade, up to the AIDS crisis of New York in the late 80s. It goes from Giovanni's Room to Angels in America and it thoroughly deserves those comparisons. The Story of the Night is the unknown Irish classic. Richard's story is memorable, funny, and utterly heartbreaking. One could suggest that it droops a bit in the middle but its overall mastery makes up for that. This is one of the best books I've read this year. It's just wonderful and it will break you. So look forward to that.]]> 3.54 1996 The Story of the Night
author: Colm T坦ib鱈n
name: Barry
average rating: 3.54
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2015/10/21
date added: 2015/10/23
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Not in a million years would I have put this novel in Colm T坦ib鱈n's bibliography. It isn't set in Ireland, there isn't a woman running way from something, and it's received little-to-no awards. However, and I may be premature in this decision, I think this might be T坦ib鱈n's masterpiece.

Split into three parts, we follow Richard's journey from Argentina during the Falklands War, through the entire decade, up to the AIDS crisis of New York in the late 80s. It goes from Giovanni's Room to Angels in America and it thoroughly deserves those comparisons. The Story of the Night is the unknown Irish classic. Richard's story is memorable, funny, and utterly heartbreaking. One could suggest that it droops a bit in the middle but its overall mastery makes up for that. This is one of the best books I've read this year. It's just wonderful and it will break you. So look forward to that.
]]> Amulet 6744132 184 Roberto Bola単o 0330511831 Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015 so Bola単o," I thought.

A woman recounts her colourful life in Mexico but... she's telling us all this whilst hiding from members of a right-wing army who have just invaded the university in which she works. Is that Bola単o enough for you?

This might be one of my favourite Bola単o novels. The prose is near lucid but doesn't fall into any of the traps that Monsieur Pain did and is just short enough to keep your attention through any of the more experimental pieces. This is sort of like if A Moveable Feast fucked The Company She Keeps whilst both were on benzos and the aborted baby managed to dictate a book. It's that good. ]]> 3.71 1999 Amulet
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2015/10/21
date added: 2015/10/21
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
When I read the blurb of this novel I laughed. "This is so Bola単o," I thought.

A woman recounts her colourful life in Mexico but... she's telling us all this whilst hiding from members of a right-wing army who have just invaded the university in which she works. Is that Bola単o enough for you?

This might be one of my favourite Bola単o novels. The prose is near lucid but doesn't fall into any of the traps that Monsieur Pain did and is just short enough to keep your attention through any of the more experimental pieces. This is sort of like if A Moveable Feast fucked The Company She Keeps whilst both were on benzos and the aborted baby managed to dictate a book. It's that good.
]]> The Heather Blazing 1052844 245 Colm T坦ib鱈n 0330321242 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 The South, we strive for things to come together but then we remember that this is a Colm T坦ib鱈n novel and that never happens. Overall this is enjoyable but is more of a sign of things to come. ]]> 3.79 1992 The Heather Blazing
author: Colm T坦ib鱈n
name: Barry
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/19
date added: 2015/10/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In his first novel set entirely in Enniscorthy, Colm T坦ib鱈n tells the tale of a high court judge, Eamon, living in late 20th century Ireland. I feel that this would be his hardest novel to get into if the reader isn't Irish or unless you have strangely intimate knowledge of 20th century Irish politics. With cameos from Lemass, de Valera, and Haughey, you can already tell that this novel is steeped in politics that many would find either dry or highly testing. However it is more than just a political novel, it is a portrait of a man trying to keep his life together. Like Katherine in The South, we strive for things to come together but then we remember that this is a Colm T坦ib鱈n novel and that never happens. Overall this is enjoyable but is more of a sign of things to come.
]]> Death's Dark Abyss 505775 A riveting drama of guilt, revenge, and justice, Massimo Carlotto's Death's Dark Abyss tells the story of two men and the savage crime that binds them. During a robbery, Raffaello Beggiato takes a young woman and her child hostage and later murders them. Beggiato is arrested, tried, and sentenced to life. The victims' father and husband, Silvano, is undone by his loss. He plunges into an ever-deepening abyss until the day, years later, when the murderer seeks his pardon, and the wounded Silvano turns predator as he ruthlessly plots his revenge.]]> 192 Massimo Carlotto 1933372184 Barry 1 21st-century, read-in-2015
Giorgia started crying, kissed me on the forehead, and went back to being a whore. Todays Monday. Another shitty fucking day. The cigarettes done and I got to make a decision. Before leaving I hugged mamma. She cried too. Im really fed the fuck up now. And Im heading across this motherfucking street.]]> 3.89 2004 Death's Dark Abyss
author: Massimo Carlotto
name: Barry
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2004
rating: 1
read at: 2015/10/18
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
You can see by the rating what I thought of this. Im not even going to review this. It doesnt deserve my words. So Im going to let the book review itself. Here is an actual passage from Deaths Dark Abyss. Enjoy

Giorgia started crying, kissed me on the forehead, and went back to being a whore. Todays Monday. Another shitty fucking day. The cigarettes done and I got to make a decision. Before leaving I hugged mamma. She cried too. Im really fed the fuck up now. And Im heading across this motherfucking street.�
]]> <![CDATA[Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza]]> 45884 255 Gloria E. Anzald炭a 1879960745 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015 4.26 1987 Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
author: Gloria E. Anzald炭a
name: Barry
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2015/10/18
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Anzald炭as most famous work, a collection of essays and poetry is a refreshing and important book. I read this for my Chicana literature course and it is by far the touchstone of Chicana studies. Anzald炭a writes very personal but powerful essays on what it means to be Chicana and what its like living in a country in which she is seen as a second or third class citizen. Her poetry is political but highly readable and perfectly complements the essays in this collection. I highly recommend this work, even if you have no interest in Chicano studies, its required reading.
]]> <![CDATA[The Goodbye Kiss (Giorgio Pellegrini #1)]]> 167040 145 Massimo Carlotto 1933372052 Barry 1 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.69 2001 The Goodbye Kiss (Giorgio Pellegrini #1)
author: Massimo Carlotto
name: Barry
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2001
rating: 1
read at: 2015/10/16
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Ugh. Former criminal-turned-fiction writer Massimo Carlotto is the literary equivalent of Guy Fieris hair. His blocky, uber-masculine, prose is reminiscent of an angsty teen boys short story about his total bitch� of an ex-girlfriend and drinking Coors Light with his bros. This novel is fucking detestable. From its sexual politics to its clunky plot. The female characters are reminiscent of Beaker from The Muppet Show, relegated to bleating noises and too stupid to be human. Good god I must be a masochist to have finished this shit.
]]> The Insufferable Gaucho 21105943
Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled and yet somehow haywire, the five short stories included here are some of Bola単o's best. Wether they concern a stalwart rodent detective trying to investigate the mysterious deaths of his fellow rats, an elderly judge giving up his job in the city for an improbable return to the family farm in the Pampas, or a confrontation between an elusive film-maker and the little-known Argentinian novelist whose work he's plagiarized for years, they are as haunting as they are enthralling.]]> 176 Bolano Roberta 0330510622 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015
The Myths of Cthulhu can be read as Bola単o's love letter to Latin American fiction. He urges us to ignore the term bestseller� and to read the names that everyones forgotten. Dont read what everyone else reads, wheres the fun in that!? This was my favourite piece from the collection and I think I want it tattooed onto my face, an act which Im sure Bola単o wouldve loved.]]> 3.38 2003 The Insufferable Gaucho
author: Bolano Roberta
name: Barry
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2003
rating: 2
read at: 2015/10/15
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
This is very much a so-so collection from Bola単o. The fiction stories didnt do anything for me, which is strange because Ive always enjoyed Bola単o's strange view of the world. However, the end of this collection contains two non-fiction essays which are absolute sensations. Literature + Illness = Illness is a non-fiction collection of vignettes in which Bola単o discusses his life with the cancer that will eventually kill him. A stark piece which gives a pared back view into his mind and his inspirations.

The Myths of Cthulhu can be read as Bola単o's love letter to Latin American fiction. He urges us to ignore the term bestseller� and to read the names that everyones forgotten. Dont read what everyone else reads, wheres the fun in that!? This was my favourite piece from the collection and I think I want it tattooed onto my face, an act which Im sure Bola単o wouldve loved.
]]> The Graduate 6973956 192 Charles Webb 0141190248 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.25 1963 The Graduate
author: Charles Webb
name: Barry
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2015/10/14
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
The 60s were great. I think. I wouldnt know, I was born in 1996. A world where a middle-aged woman seduces a boy who is barely out of his teens and it becomes one of the most enjoyable and humourous books of the decade. I adored The Graduate. Theres something in the prose, something in the plot, something in the characters, something in the dry humour that just tick, tick, tick, ticked all of my boxes. I tried to stop reading, to take a break, but no, it wasnt happening. I was so invested in this book that I nearly missed my stop on the bus. Ill be thinking about this one for a while.
]]> Monsieur Pain 8700718 Franz Mesmer, um m辿dico do s辿culo XVIII, desenvolveu um m辿todo de tratamento de doen巽as humanas servindo-se do magnetismo animal - uma t辿cnica precursora da hipnose que ficou mais conhecida pelo conto Revela巽達o mesm辿rica, de Edgar Allan Poe. Um dos disc鱈pulos do mesmerismo, Pierre Pain, 辿 o protagonista deste romance de Roberto Bola単o, escrito no in鱈cio dos anos 1980.
Na Paris do entreguerras, Pain 辿 contratado por madame Reynaud para ajudar um sul-americano chamado Vallejo, que sofre de um solu巽o incur叩vel. Outros m辿dicos avaliaram o homem e nada descobriram.
No entanto, logo o protagonista se encontra envolvido em uma conspira巽達o muito maior do que imaginava. Perseguido por dois homens misteriosos que ele julga serem espanh坦is, o mesmerista embarca em uma viagem alucinante pelas ruas de Paris, deparando com artistas de vanguarda, filmes raros de fic巽達o cient鱈fica e complexos labirintos dignos da imagina巽達o de Jorge Luis Borges.
Monsieur Pain, um dos primeiros romances escritos por Bola単o, 辿 uma pe巽a rara em sua um livro atmosf辿rico, repleto de temas caros literatura de g棚nero, como o ocultismo, a busca detetivesca e a confus達o entre sonho e realidade. Enquanto Pain se deixa levar pelo mist辿rio, as fronteiras entre o que 辿 real e o que 辿 imagina巽達o se dissolvem.
A revela巽達o final, 坦bvia para os leitores familiarizados com poesia latino-americana, de que o paciente com solu巽o se trata do famoso poeta peruano C辿sar Vallejo, adiciona ainda mais camadas interpretativas a esta estranha hist坦ria. As circunst但ncias da morte de Vallejo, por sinal, continuam enigm叩ticas at辿 hoje. Por fim, o ep鱈logo adianta uma t辿cnica narrativa que seria depois consagrada por Bola単 muitas vozes buscando documentar a vida de pessoas, algumas reais, outras fict鱈cias.]]> 134 Roberto Bola単o 0330510568 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.17 1999 Monsieur Pain
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.17
book published: 1999
rating: 2
read at: 2015/10/14
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
There are some instances where great geniuses can go awry. When they are so invested in writing like themselves that they form a loose parody of lucid prose which in the end only leaves a bad taste. While I did enjoy Monsieur Pain for the first third or so, I must admit that the entire novel does fall apart. It doesnt even read like Bola単o. Its a pity. I dont hate it however. I� just dont love it.
]]> The South 1052642 243 Colm T坦ib鱈n 0330323334 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.82 1990 The South
author: Colm T坦ib鱈n
name: Barry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/13
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Even in T坦ib鱈ns first novel he has already set out the tropes (Im using that word in the kindest terms) that have made his novels such staples of modern Irish literature. We have a woman in distress, Katherine, whos exiled herself to Barcelona in order to forget her past in Ireland. A keen painter, Katherine is content with her new life until she meets a man one day and her past finally catches up with her. Reading T坦ib鱈ns trademark filigree prose always reminds me of standing before one of Paul Henrys vast cloudscapes. The utter simplistic beauty which draws you in and urges you examine every detail down to the stems and the dots. Hard to think this is a first novel. T坦ib鱈n is the master.
]]> <![CDATA[We Don't Know What We're Doing]]> 25424028
Thomas Morris' debut collection reveals its treasures in unexpected ways, offering vivid and moving glimpses of the lost, lonely and bemused. These entertaining stories portray the lives of the people who know where they are, but don't know what they're doing.]]> 278 Thomas Morris 0571317014 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.71 2015 We Don't Know What We're Doing
author: Thomas Morris
name: Barry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/13
date added: 2015/10/18
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
In a collection of Welsh stories, Morris give us a panoptic view of Caerphilly through the people who live and breathe the city. I found sediments of Ali Smith and Armistead Maupin in these tales which balance the tragic and the comic near perfectly. Being a Welsh writer who lives in Dublin, Morris is able to mix the blood of Irish humour and Welsh humour and make a flea of his own.
]]> Asking For It 25594874
Until that night . . .

Now, she's an embarrassment. Now, she's just a slut. Now, she is nothing.

And those pictures - those pictures that everyone has seen - mean she can never forget.

For fans of Caitlin Moran, Marian Keyes and Jodi Picoult.

BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2015. The award-winning, bestselling novel about the life-shattering impact of sexual assault, rape and how victims are treated.]]> 251 Louise O'Neill Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015
While the message of this novel is very important I cannot say that the hype is deserved. To be perfectly honest I would have preferred if O'Neill had just penned an essay, an essay stating her views and the point she's trying to get across. I feel she couldn't wrap a successful narrative or plot around her views and thus this novel ultimately fails, it doesn't work.

The novel starts off slow and doesn't pick up any pace until the party scene. I feel that the party scene, being the most important scene, is actually better written than the rest of the novel. I can only presume that O'Neill paid special attention to this scene and spent a lot of time with it and that explains its triumph. It is a harrowing scene, and does capture the reader. After that, however, we fall into middling territory. I honestly feel I could have skipped 100-pages and wouldn't have missed anything.

I headed a book club discussion of this book in my university and a point that was made by everyone was that it does fall apart in the second half. There is a lot of repetition and it does get boring. However the majority of the group appreciated the book far more than I did, I was very much the outlier.

If there is one positive in this book it's O'Neill's wonderful ability to capture the essence of Irish teenhood. The book is set in Cork and I am a fellow Corkonian, still living in the county. It really is wonderful how O'Neill conveys the patois of Irish teenage girls.

However, in the end, it's a mess. The plot comes and goes and leaves the reader bored. The minor characters are but husks of personalities. It's getting two-stars for effortless mannerisms and vernacular which is some of the best I've read. Shame about the rest.]]> 4.13 2015 Asking For It
author: Louise O'Neill
name: Barry
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/09/01
date added: 2015/10/13
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
With great hype come great expectations. It's fairly tough to try to ignore this book, especially in Ireland. It's being lauded as one of the greatest Irish novels in recent memory and all I will say to that is, "hmm".

While the message of this novel is very important I cannot say that the hype is deserved. To be perfectly honest I would have preferred if O'Neill had just penned an essay, an essay stating her views and the point she's trying to get across. I feel she couldn't wrap a successful narrative or plot around her views and thus this novel ultimately fails, it doesn't work.

The novel starts off slow and doesn't pick up any pace until the party scene. I feel that the party scene, being the most important scene, is actually better written than the rest of the novel. I can only presume that O'Neill paid special attention to this scene and spent a lot of time with it and that explains its triumph. It is a harrowing scene, and does capture the reader. After that, however, we fall into middling territory. I honestly feel I could have skipped 100-pages and wouldn't have missed anything.

I headed a book club discussion of this book in my university and a point that was made by everyone was that it does fall apart in the second half. There is a lot of repetition and it does get boring. However the majority of the group appreciated the book far more than I did, I was very much the outlier.

If there is one positive in this book it's O'Neill's wonderful ability to capture the essence of Irish teenhood. The book is set in Cork and I am a fellow Corkonian, still living in the county. It really is wonderful how O'Neill conveys the patois of Irish teenage girls.

However, in the end, it's a mess. The plot comes and goes and leaves the reader bored. The minor characters are but husks of personalities. It's getting two-stars for effortless mannerisms and vernacular which is some of the best I've read. Shame about the rest.
]]> The Return 15927343 The Nation, "one of the remarkable qualities of Bola単o's short stories is that they can do the work of a novel". The Return contains thirteen unforgettable stories bent on returning to haunt you. Wide-ranging, suggestive, and daring, a Bola単o story might concern the unexpected fate of a beautiful ex-girlfriend or a dream of meeting Enrique Lihn; his plots go anywhere and everywhere and they always surprise. Consider the title piece: a young party animal collapses in a Parisian disco and dies on the dance floor; just as his soul is departing his body, it realizes strange doings are afoot--and what follows next defies the imagination (except Bola単o's own).
Although a few have been serialized in The New Yorker and Playboy, most of the stories of The Return have never before appeared in English, and to Bola単o's many readers will be like catnip to the cats.]]> 199 Roberto Bola単o 0330510606 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.74 2010 The Return
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/12
date added: 2015/10/12
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
A well-rounded collection of stories by one of literature's greatest sons. The title story, "The Return", was my favourite from the book. It's very strange and highly radical, it reeks of Bola単o. Other favourites include, "Snow", "Detectives", "Clara", and "Photos". (oh and yeah, skip "Buba", it's very long and very boring. Unless that's what Bola単o wanted...)
]]> Pablo (Pablo, #1-4) 23167772
with poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, the painter Georges Braque, and his great rival Henri Matisse. Julie Birmant and Cl辿ment Oubrerie depict a career that began in poverty and reached its climax with the advent of cubism and modern art.]]> 344 Julie Birmant 1906838941 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 Pablo is a graphic novel biography of the early life of Pablo Picasso. The narrative take place from the point of view of Fernande Olivier, Picasso's lover and muse and the subject of over 60 of his early works. Being a student of Art History, this really piqued my interest when I spotted it as I was walking out of my city's library. "A graphic novel biography!?", I thought. "Might as well give it a go."

The novel begins with Picasso's arrival in Paris and leads us through his transformation from a conventional painter to the great pioneer of Cubism. This novel ends with the completion of his first great masterpiece, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. However, if you know anything about Picasso then you'll know that he died in 1973, yet we end here in 1907, so this is very much a hagiography of his Blue, Rose, and African periods.

The art style of this work is highly admirable. In my opinion, it is drawn in a somewhat rushed, simplistic style but with a highly ambient palette. Some may have some reservations about the artwork, especially those who are used to highly polished American comic books, but I feel the art lends itself to the narrative.

However, as I mentioned earlier, Art History is kinda my thing. I know quite a bit about Picasso and his works so this novel was a mere flight of fancy to me. The authors have clearly taken a lot of artistic license with Picasso's real story and idolise him to near God-like levels. Not in a million years would this ever be acknowledged by any art historical institute. However, if you know literally nothing about Picasso then I would recommend this because it does cover the major events of his early life even if they are highly idealised. For me however, I cannot say that I derived anything from this work. It is entirely surface level stuff. If one were to dig any deeper into the narrative they would hit a brick wall. It is very well executed though and I do highly admire the authors for envisaging Picasso's life in such a new and unique way. Just, don't quote this in your assignments. ]]> 3.60 2015 Pablo (Pablo, #1-4)
author: Julie Birmant
name: Barry
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/10/11
date added: 2015/10/11
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Pablo is a graphic novel biography of the early life of Pablo Picasso. The narrative take place from the point of view of Fernande Olivier, Picasso's lover and muse and the subject of over 60 of his early works. Being a student of Art History, this really piqued my interest when I spotted it as I was walking out of my city's library. "A graphic novel biography!?", I thought. "Might as well give it a go."

The novel begins with Picasso's arrival in Paris and leads us through his transformation from a conventional painter to the great pioneer of Cubism. This novel ends with the completion of his first great masterpiece, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907. However, if you know anything about Picasso then you'll know that he died in 1973, yet we end here in 1907, so this is very much a hagiography of his Blue, Rose, and African periods.

The art style of this work is highly admirable. In my opinion, it is drawn in a somewhat rushed, simplistic style but with a highly ambient palette. Some may have some reservations about the artwork, especially those who are used to highly polished American comic books, but I feel the art lends itself to the narrative.

However, as I mentioned earlier, Art History is kinda my thing. I know quite a bit about Picasso and his works so this novel was a mere flight of fancy to me. The authors have clearly taken a lot of artistic license with Picasso's real story and idolise him to near God-like levels. Not in a million years would this ever be acknowledged by any art historical institute. However, if you know literally nothing about Picasso then I would recommend this because it does cover the major events of his early life even if they are highly idealised. For me however, I cannot say that I derived anything from this work. It is entirely surface level stuff. If one were to dig any deeper into the narrative they would hit a brick wall. It is very well executed though and I do highly admire the authors for envisaging Picasso's life in such a new and unique way. Just, don't quote this in your assignments.
]]> Solace 11512137 341 Belinda McKeon 0330529846 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 As You Like It. Belinda McKeon tells a story which strangely parallels mine. We have Mark, a young guy who grew up in the Irish countryside, who decides to go to university the city to study English. However Mark's life is full of major setbacks that he must somehow overcome throughout the novel.

McKeon is a natural. Her ability to capture her character's voices is superb and this leads to one of the sweariest opening chapters to a novel that I've ever read. In Ireland, swearing isn't a taboo, it's an art form. We're a country that uses "fucker" and "cunt" as terms of affection. I fully admire a novel that doesn't hold back, this isn't Val Doonican's Ireland.

While I have to admit that it does buckle in a few place, this is overall an enjoyable read. It shows that this new generation of Irish writers are here to stay. And I can only welcome them. ]]> 3.49 2011 Solace
author: Belinda McKeon
name: Barry
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2015/10/10
date added: 2015/10/11
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Irish writers do melancholy best. We are a nation of Jaques' from As You Like It. Belinda McKeon tells a story which strangely parallels mine. We have Mark, a young guy who grew up in the Irish countryside, who decides to go to university the city to study English. However Mark's life is full of major setbacks that he must somehow overcome throughout the novel.

McKeon is a natural. Her ability to capture her character's voices is superb and this leads to one of the sweariest opening chapters to a novel that I've ever read. In Ireland, swearing isn't a taboo, it's an art form. We're a country that uses "fucker" and "cunt" as terms of affection. I fully admire a novel that doesn't hold back, this isn't Val Doonican's Ireland.

While I have to admit that it does buckle in a few place, this is overall an enjoyable read. It shows that this new generation of Irish writers are here to stay. And I can only welcome them.
]]> <![CDATA[Nazi Literature in the Americas]]> 7169195 Nazi Literature in the Americas details the lives of a rich cast of characters from one of the most extraordinarily fecund imaginations in world literature. Written with acerbic wit and virtuosic flair, this encyclopaedic cavalcade of fictional pan-American authors is the terrifyingly humourous and remarkably inventive masterpiece which made Bolano famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world.]]> 272 Roberto Bola単o 0330510509 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015
Y'see, there is no such thing as Nazi Literature. It's all made up. And all of the people discussed in this book? All made up as well. This is a fictional encyclopedia. None of it is real.
I will admit, if you haven't read any Bola単o before then this work will be completely wasted on you. This is Bola単o at his most Bola単o. It is just so weird and fun and strangely tragic. You honestly treat these fictional people as real, living writers. You become intrigued by their oeuvres only to remember it's all made up. It's utterly original and a fine antinovel. It only further elevates Bola単o to the level of a genius. ]]> 3.67 1996 Nazi Literature in the Americas
author: Roberto Bola単o
name: Barry
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2015/09/29
date added: 2015/09/29
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
This is an encyclopedia of writers associated with the Nazi Literature movement of the 20th century, focusing mainly on those living in the Americas. It gives each writer a couple of pages of biography and discusses most of their major works. All of it is backed up by an extensive index and a vast bibliography. So far so simple yeah? Oh hell no. This is fucking Bola単o.

Y'see, there is no such thing as Nazi Literature. It's all made up. And all of the people discussed in this book? All made up as well. This is a fictional encyclopedia. None of it is real.
I will admit, if you haven't read any Bola単o before then this work will be completely wasted on you. This is Bola単o at his most Bola単o. It is just so weird and fun and strangely tragic. You honestly treat these fictional people as real, living writers. You become intrigued by their oeuvres only to remember it's all made up. It's utterly original and a fine antinovel. It only further elevates Bola単o to the level of a genius.
]]> Music for Chameleons 60483 Music for Chameleons is Handcarved Coffins, a nonfiction novel� based on the brutal crimes of a real-life murderer. Taking place in a small Midwestern town in America, it offers chilling insights into the mind of a killer and the obsession of the man bringing him to justice. Also in this volume are six short stories and seven conversational portraits� including a touching one of Marilyn Monroe, the beautiful child� and a hilarious one of a dope-smoking cleaning lady doing her rounds in New York.]]> 262 Truman Capote 0141184612 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 In Cold Blood but the recent discovery that most of it was probably made up does make it hard to suspend disbelief. However, the real jewel in this collection, the reason why it's getting three-stars, is A Beautiful Child. The transcript of the day Capote spent with Marilyn Monroe is absolutely fantastic. It portrays a side of Monroe that we never really got to see, we see her as a human being. It is utterly wonderful and strangely poetic. It's just a shame that the rest of this work doesn't live up to it. ]]> 4.10 1980 Music for Chameleons
author: Truman Capote
name: Barry
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at: 2015/09/01
date added: 2015/09/25
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In this collection of fiction and non-fiction from late in Capote's life, he shows us that while his fiction may be depleting, his non-fiction is as sharp as ever. The stories at the beginning of the book didn't do anything for me. They were all very middling and detracted from this work in my opinion. "Handcarved Coffins" is a work in the style In Cold Blood but the recent discovery that most of it was probably made up does make it hard to suspend disbelief. However, the real jewel in this collection, the reason why it's getting three-stars, is A Beautiful Child. The transcript of the day Capote spent with Marilyn Monroe is absolutely fantastic. It portrays a side of Monroe that we never really got to see, we see her as a human being. It is utterly wonderful and strangely poetic. It's just a shame that the rest of this work doesn't live up to it.
]]> Deliverance 2271846 240 James Dickey 0330026542 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015
So four guys so canoeing in Georgia and things go wrong. They go really, really wrong. Deliverance is testosterone personified. It is a novel about men but ultimately it is an ode to masculinity. It harks back to the adventure novels that little boys would read and plays with this sense of adventure. It lures the characters, and ultimately the reader, into this intense, sweaty, oppressive forest. The men flow through the jungle but also the jungle flows through the men. As we watch everything slowly descending into sheer chaos and brutality, we feel helpless. You may not know it but you are also on the canoe and you better start paddling.

Deliverance offers no deliverance. The bitter irony of its title is but one of many cruel fates that the reader has to witness. The novel is depraved, but in its depravity it shows us life. The lives of these men, their decisions whether they be just or not and, ultimately, their fates. You journey with these men into the bowels of hell.]]> 3.82 1970 Deliverance
author: James Dickey
name: Barry
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1970
rating: 3
read at: 2015/09/01
date added: 2015/09/17
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Only men would think it is a good idea to go canoeing into the jungle wilderness of Georgia. If this novel were female driven it would have been about two pages long because no woman would stand for its sheer bravado-driven ridiculousness.

So four guys so canoeing in Georgia and things go wrong. They go really, really wrong. Deliverance is testosterone personified. It is a novel about men but ultimately it is an ode to masculinity. It harks back to the adventure novels that little boys would read and plays with this sense of adventure. It lures the characters, and ultimately the reader, into this intense, sweaty, oppressive forest. The men flow through the jungle but also the jungle flows through the men. As we watch everything slowly descending into sheer chaos and brutality, we feel helpless. You may not know it but you are also on the canoe and you better start paddling.

Deliverance offers no deliverance. The bitter irony of its title is but one of many cruel fates that the reader has to witness. The novel is depraved, but in its depravity it shows us life. The lives of these men, their decisions whether they be just or not and, ultimately, their fates. You journey with these men into the bowels of hell.
]]> <![CDATA[A Brief History of Seven Killings]]> 23834772
On 3 December 1976, just weeks before the general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns blazing. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert, but the next day he left the country, and didnt return for two years. Not a lot was recorded about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much has been said, whispered and sung about in the streets of West Kingston, with information surfacing at odd times, only to sink into rumour and misinformation.

Inspired by this near-mythic event, A Brief History of Seven Killings takes the form of an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards' drug dealer. Marlon Jamess bold undertaking traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined � and questions asked � in this compelling novel of monumental scope and ambition.]]> 688 Marlon James Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings is more than just a wild ride, it's a brutal masterpiece that deserves its place as one of the best books of this decade so far.

James weaves a Dickensian plot around Jamaican history and culture. The entire plot is based on the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976. It's a fictionalised history of Jamaica from the 1970s through to the 1990s. I must admit that my knowledge of Jamaican history and politics and culture is laughably sparse. I'd tried ackee and saltfish once and didn't really like it so I don't think Marlon James could have found a whiter canvas to paint his story upon.

I mentioned Dickens earlier because he's the only author whose work I can compare this to. A massive cast of characters, a hefty page count, numerous interweaving storylines but in the end it always comes together. This novel displays such mastery of plot and prose that I have not read since The Old Curiosity Shop or The Pickwick Papers. While this is essentially a very different novel it still harks back to and is possibly in the same league as these literary greats.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is never an easy read. From whole chapters written in Jamaican dialect to brutal murders and mutilations being described in minute detail. When Steinbeck discussed The Grapes of Wrath he said, "I've done my damndest to rip reader's nerves to rags; I don't want him satisfied". I feel this quote also applies to James and this novel. He is a brutal writer, the dots above the Is are bullet holes and stems of his Ts are sharpened and ready to kill. Blood imbrues the pages of this novel and you are always caught off guard.

As with many great novels such as this one there is always talk of literary awards and prizes wafting through the air. The most prominent to me is the Man Booker. At the time of writing, this novel is longlisted for the 2015 prize and I can say without hesitation that this is by far the runaway winner. I cannot conceive of any reason why this novel should not snatch the prize. If it does lose however it will go down in history as "do you know what actually won the year A Brief History of Seven Killings was longlisted?"

While some may be apprehensive and intimidated by its size, subject matter, and prose, I cannot urge everyone enough to pick up this book. A good novel holds your attention for a couple of hours, a great novel teaches you something. New cultures, new languages, new people. A Brief History of Seven Killings is a great novel.]]> 3.59 2014 A Brief History of Seven Killings
author: Marlon James
name: Barry
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/08/01
date added: 2015/09/10
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
When I open a book and see a lengthy character list I know I'm in for a wild ride. However Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings is more than just a wild ride, it's a brutal masterpiece that deserves its place as one of the best books of this decade so far.

James weaves a Dickensian plot around Jamaican history and culture. The entire plot is based on the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976. It's a fictionalised history of Jamaica from the 1970s through to the 1990s. I must admit that my knowledge of Jamaican history and politics and culture is laughably sparse. I'd tried ackee and saltfish once and didn't really like it so I don't think Marlon James could have found a whiter canvas to paint his story upon.

I mentioned Dickens earlier because he's the only author whose work I can compare this to. A massive cast of characters, a hefty page count, numerous interweaving storylines but in the end it always comes together. This novel displays such mastery of plot and prose that I have not read since The Old Curiosity Shop or The Pickwick Papers. While this is essentially a very different novel it still harks back to and is possibly in the same league as these literary greats.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is never an easy read. From whole chapters written in Jamaican dialect to brutal murders and mutilations being described in minute detail. When Steinbeck discussed The Grapes of Wrath he said, "I've done my damndest to rip reader's nerves to rags; I don't want him satisfied". I feel this quote also applies to James and this novel. He is a brutal writer, the dots above the Is are bullet holes and stems of his Ts are sharpened and ready to kill. Blood imbrues the pages of this novel and you are always caught off guard.

As with many great novels such as this one there is always talk of literary awards and prizes wafting through the air. The most prominent to me is the Man Booker. At the time of writing, this novel is longlisted for the 2015 prize and I can say without hesitation that this is by far the runaway winner. I cannot conceive of any reason why this novel should not snatch the prize. If it does lose however it will go down in history as "do you know what actually won the year A Brief History of Seven Killings was longlisted?"

While some may be apprehensive and intimidated by its size, subject matter, and prose, I cannot urge everyone enough to pick up this book. A good novel holds your attention for a couple of hours, a great novel teaches you something. New cultures, new languages, new people. A Brief History of Seven Killings is a great novel.
]]> Sleeping On Jupiter 25616401 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015A stark and unflinching novel by a spellbinding storyteller, about religion, love and violence in the modern world.A train stops at a railway station. A young woman jumps off. She has wild hair, sloppy clothes, a distracted air. She looks Indian, yet she is somehow not. The sudden violence of what happens next leaves the other passengers gasping.The train terminates at Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests and ashrams, three old women disembark only to encounter the girl once again. What is someone like her doing in this remote corner, which attracts only worshippers?Over the next five days, the old women live out their long-planned dream of a holiday together; their temple guide finds ecstasy in forbidden love; and the girl is joined by a photographer battling his own demons.The full force of the evil and violence beneath the serene surface of the town becomes evident when their lives overlap and collide. Unexpected connections are revealed between devotion and violence, friendship and fear, as Jarmuli is revealed as a place with a long, dark past that transforms all who encounter it.]]> 256 Anuradha Roy Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.54 2015 Sleeping On Jupiter
author: Anuradha Roy
name: Barry
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/08/12
date added: 2015/08/12
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Our narrator, Nomi, retells the stories from her traumatic childhood and paints a harsh picture of Indian society. In a couple of days she witnesses her father's murder and is deserted by her mother, the beginning of this novel is gripping and the prose exudes brutal brilliance. However, as we read on we story becomes more and more generic and I really got bored with this novel at the half-way point. This was incredibly disappointing for me, I thought I had began a great work but I was left with a boring novel that relies on saccharine sentimentality and sympathy for dull characters.
]]> Satin Island 25124603 Meet U. � a talented and uneasy figure currently pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in contemporary London. His employers advise everyone from big businesses to governments, and, to this end, expect their 'corporate anthropologist' to help decode and manipulate the world around them � all the more so now that a giant, epoch-defining project is in the offing.


Instead, U. spends his days procrastinating, meandering through endless buffer-zones of information and becoming obsessed by the images with which the world bombards him on a daily basis: oil spills, African traffic jams, roller-blade processions, zombie parades. Is there, U. wonders, a secret logic holding all these images together � a codex that, once cracked, will unlock the master-meaning of our age? Might it have something to do with South Pacific Cargo Cults, or the dead parachutists in the news? Perhaps; perhaps not.


As U. oscillates between the visionary and the vague, brilliance and bullshit, Satin Island emerges, an impassioned and exquisite novel for our disjointed times.


]]> 210 Tom McCarthy Barry 1 21st-century, read-in-2015 This was longlisted for the Man Booker!? In this novel we follow a character named U, no really, he's called fucking U, while he wonders and ponders for 200ish pages. I applaud this novel on its brevity, any longer and I would have literally died of boredom. 85% of this novel is just full scientific hokum that will just baffle and confuse any casual reader. Not to mention that it did one of my ultimate peeves. At some parts it reminded me of... Palahniuk... and once that happens it's game over for me, the red flags rise and I get the fuck out of dodge. Ugh. This is a literary Hindenburg.

]]> 3.02 2015 Satin Island
author: Tom McCarthy
name: Barry
average rating: 3.02
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at: 2015/07/30
date added: 2015/07/30
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
What an utterly boring and navel-gazing novel. This was longlisted for the Man Booker!? In this novel we follow a character named U, no really, he's called fucking U, while he wonders and ponders for 200ish pages. I applaud this novel on its brevity, any longer and I would have literally died of boredom. 85% of this novel is just full scientific hokum that will just baffle and confuse any casual reader. Not to mention that it did one of my ultimate peeves. At some parts it reminded me of... Palahniuk... and once that happens it's game over for me, the red flags rise and I get the fuck out of dodge. Ugh. This is a literary Hindenburg.


]]> Shakespeare 1848873 200 Bill Bryson 000719790X Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.76 2007 Shakespeare
author: Bill Bryson
name: Barry
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/29
date added: 2015/07/29
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
A short, witty, highly readable biography of the Bard by one of the our best beloved writers. Bryson doesn't go incredibly in-depth with this work but I applaud him on that. A lot of biographies can be bogged down by completely unnecessary information which causes the page number to rise to the thousands. This 200-page biog contains about as much information as we casual readers need on Shakespeare. I would definitely include it on a list as one of my most enjoyable biographies in recent memory.
]]> In Evil Hour 22595671 In Evil Hour is the thrilling story of a Colombian society menaced by rumour and paranoia by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.



As a small South American town sweats under an oppressive heat, an unknown person creeps through the night sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. When the contents of one poster lead to a murder, everyone knows that the town is threatened by a malevolent presence - but is there anything that the mayor, the doctor or the priest can do about it?



'In Evil Hour was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!' Jim Crace



'Belongs to the very best of Marquez's work . . . should on no account be missed' Financial Times


'A splendid achievement' The Times


As one of the pioneers of magic realism and perhaps the most prominent voice of Latin American literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has received international recognition for his novels, works of non-fiction and collections of short stories. Those published in translation by Penguin include Autumn of the Patriarch, Bon Voyage Mr. President, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Collected Stories, The General in his Labyrinth, Innocent Erendira and Other Stories, Leaf Storm, Living to Tell the Tale, Love in the Time of Cholera, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, News of a Kidnapping, No-one Writes to the Colonel, Of Love and Other Demons, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor and Strange Pilgrims.

]]> 187 Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 Leaf Storm and No One Writes to the Colonel as just long short stories). My overall problem with this book is that Garc鱈足a M叩rquez has written an entirely conventional novel.

As we know, Gabo and conventionality don't go together. He's the master of magical realism and in In Evil Hour he's written an unusually average and middling novel. It doesn't work. It's like as if Nabokov, after writing Pale Fire, had gone on and written a YA novel. It doesn't make any sense to me. In Evil Hour almost feels dumbed down. This could be a fault of the translation but I have enough faith in Penguin to believe that they chose only the best translator.

While this isn't a bad novel, it is uncharacteristically bland for Garc鱈足a M叩rquez. However it would take a lot for me to lose faith in Gabo so be assured, I know the best is yet to come.]]> 3.50 1962 In Evil Hour
author: Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez
name: Barry
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1962
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/28
date added: 2015/07/28
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
This is considered to be Garc鱈足a M叩rquez's first novel (if you discount Leaf Storm and No One Writes to the Colonel as just long short stories). My overall problem with this book is that Garc鱈足a M叩rquez has written an entirely conventional novel.

As we know, Gabo and conventionality don't go together. He's the master of magical realism and in In Evil Hour he's written an unusually average and middling novel. It doesn't work. It's like as if Nabokov, after writing Pale Fire, had gone on and written a YA novel. It doesn't make any sense to me. In Evil Hour almost feels dumbed down. This could be a fault of the translation but I have enough faith in Penguin to believe that they chose only the best translator.

While this isn't a bad novel, it is uncharacteristically bland for Garc鱈足a M叩rquez. However it would take a lot for me to lose faith in Gabo so be assured, I know the best is yet to come.
]]> No One Writes to the Colonel 20804833 Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garc鐃a M鐃rquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, tells a powerful tale of poverty and undying hope in his moving novel No One Writes to the Colonel.



'The Colonel took the top off the coffee can and saw that there was only one spoonful left'



Fridays are different. Every other day of the week, the Colonel and his ailing wife fight a constant battle against poverty and monotony, scraping together the dregs of their savings for the food and medicine that keeps them alive. But on Fridays the postman comes - and that sets a fleeting wave of hope rushing through the Colonel's ageing heart.



For fifteen years he's watched the mail launch come into harbour, hoping he'll be handed an envelope containing the army pension promised to him all those years ago. Whilst he waits for the cheque, his hopes are pinned on his prize bird and the upcoming cockfighting season. But until then the bird - like the Colonel and his wife - must somehow be fed. . .



'M鐃rquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no one else can do' Salman Rushie



'Masterly. He dazzles us with powerful effect' New Statesman


'One of this century's most evocative writers' Anne Tyler



As one of the pioneers of magic realism and perhaps the most prominent voice of Latin American literature, Gabriel Garc鐃a M鐃rquez has received international recognition for his novels, works of non-fiction and collections of short stories. Those published in translation by Penguin include Autumn of the Patriarch, Bon Voyage Mr. President, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Collected Stories, The General in his Labyrinth, In Evil Hour, Innocent Er鐃ndira and Other Stories, Leaf Storm, Living to Tell the Tale, Love in the Time of Cholera, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, News of a Kidnapping, Of Love and Other Demons, The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor and Strange Pilgrims.

]]> 73 Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015
This is an utterly pessimistic novel. The Colonel and his wife are living hopeless lives and in this hopelessness, Garc鱈足a M叩rquez thrives. Nothing happens in the novel. There isn't a beginning or an ending. Like in Leaf Storm we are dropped into the middle of a story. We are observers of the Colonel and we can't help him.

This is a really fantastic little story and shows are clear improvement in the structure and story problems I found in Leaf Storm. Take me away Gabo! ]]> 3.89 1961 No One Writes to the Colonel
author: Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez
name: Barry
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1961
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/26
date added: 2015/07/26
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In this incredibly short novel, Garc鱈足a M叩rquez tells the story of an elderly and senile Colonel who, every Friday, waits to receive his pension in the post. However, he's never received his pension. Not once in fifteen years. Both the Colonel and his wife live in destitution in a small village in war-torn Colombia. They grieve the death of their son and try to sell off their belongings in order to continue living.

This is an utterly pessimistic novel. The Colonel and his wife are living hopeless lives and in this hopelessness, Garc鱈足a M叩rquez thrives. Nothing happens in the novel. There isn't a beginning or an ending. Like in Leaf Storm we are dropped into the middle of a story. We are observers of the Colonel and we can't help him.

This is a really fantastic little story and shows are clear improvement in the structure and story problems I found in Leaf Storm. Take me away Gabo!
]]> Skippy Dies 10409954 660 Paul Murray 0141009950 Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015 Skippy Dies Paul Murray writes 21st-century Ireland's response to Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Set in the fictional Seabrook College, the novel follows the lives of Daniel 'Skippy' Juster and his overweight, genius friend Ruprecht van Doren. However, as the title suggests, Skippy dies. He dies on the very first page. The novel then rewinds back ( la The Secret History) and the story begins.

Over the next 600-pages Murray writes one of the greatest Irish novels of the century thus far. At points in this novel it was like reading dispatches of my life in secondary school. Murray perfectly encapsulates life in an all-boys Irish Catholic secondary school (I went to an all-boys Irish Catholic secondary school). The antics in the classroom, the attitude towards teachers, the banter between classmates, it was all so wonderful that it made me long for my school days. God I miss them.

In Ireland there is nothing funnier than a funeral. We're an incredibly morbid nation and our literature reflects that. The humour in Skippy Dies is subtle but biting, highly offensive, and undeniably Irish.

This is without a doubt Paul Murray's masterpiece. He joins the ranks of Laurence Sterne, Samuel Beckett, and Flann O'Brien. I highly recommend this masterful novel. ]]> 3.78 2010 Skippy Dies
author: Paul Murray
name: Barry
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/25
date added: 2015/07/25
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
In Skippy Dies Paul Murray writes 21st-century Ireland's response to Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Set in the fictional Seabrook College, the novel follows the lives of Daniel 'Skippy' Juster and his overweight, genius friend Ruprecht van Doren. However, as the title suggests, Skippy dies. He dies on the very first page. The novel then rewinds back ( la The Secret History) and the story begins.

Over the next 600-pages Murray writes one of the greatest Irish novels of the century thus far. At points in this novel it was like reading dispatches of my life in secondary school. Murray perfectly encapsulates life in an all-boys Irish Catholic secondary school (I went to an all-boys Irish Catholic secondary school). The antics in the classroom, the attitude towards teachers, the banter between classmates, it was all so wonderful that it made me long for my school days. God I miss them.

In Ireland there is nothing funnier than a funeral. We're an incredibly morbid nation and our literature reflects that. The humour in Skippy Dies is subtle but biting, highly offensive, and undeniably Irish.

This is without a doubt Paul Murray's masterpiece. He joins the ranks of Laurence Sterne, Samuel Beckett, and Flann O'Brien. I highly recommend this masterful novel.
]]> The Butterfly 441531 The Butterfly takes place among the hills and hollers of West Virginia coal country. Cain uses his favorite form of narration, the first-person confessional, in relating this unusual tale of deceit, incest, and murder.

Jess Tyler is a church-going mountain man. One day out of the blue, his estranged daughter, Kady, shows up at his cabin and starts throwing herself at him in a most undaughterly way. At least that's the way Jess tells it. Cain leaves a few hints that Jess may not be 100% accurate as a narrator. For example, he claims to be a God fearing teetotaler. Yet he quickly shows himself to be a seasoned expert when it comes to constructing and operating a commercial still.]]> 127 James M. Cain Barry 1 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.36 1947 The Butterfly
author: James M. Cain
name: Barry
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1947
rating: 1
read at: 2015/07/23
date added: 2015/07/23
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
James M. Cain wrote a book about a father who falls for his daughter. That's all you need to know. It has a nice final sentence but that doesn't save this trainwreck of a novel. Incest can be done well in fiction but not here.
]]> Leaf Storm 24695317
'Suddenly, as if a whirlwind had set down roots in the centre of the town, the banana company arrived, pursed by the leaf storm'


Drenched by rain, the town has been decaying ever since the banana company left. Its people are sullen and bitter, so when the doctor - a foreigner who ended up the most hated man in town - dies, there is no one to mourn him. But also living in the town is the Colonel, who is bound to honour a promise made many years ago. The Colonel and his family must bury the doctor, despite the inclination of their fellow inhabitants that his corpse be forgotten and left to rot.

'The most important writer of fiction in any language' Bill Clinton

'Marquez is a retailer of wonders' Sunday Times


'An exquisite writer, wise, compassionate and extremely funny' Sunday Telegraph]]> 128 Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez 0141917385 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015
The atmosphere of this novel teeters on the edge of magical realism. While nothing overly magical happens, all the events have a somewhat mystical air about them (its the same kind of atmosphere that you find in Toni Morrisons novels). Garcia Marquezs highly unique and simplistic prose aids in the creation of this world.

I do have some qualms with the structure of this book however. Garcia Marquez employs a strange multiple stream-of-consciousness narrative between the three narrators which honestly causes nothing but confusion. You can be a couple of pages into a chapter before you know whos actually telling the story. There were a couple of chapters where I actually had no idea whose POV I was reading. This is a very early work by Garcia Marquez so Ill forgive him for this strange narrative; he hasn't become our beloved Gabo yet.

Overall I really did enjoy this book. Its clear that it is somewhat of a flawed work but its flaws can simply be put down to youth and inexperience (this was written when Gabo was only 21). I'm excited to see what Garcia Marquez holds for me in the future.
]]> 3.83 1955 Leaf Storm
author: Gabriel Garc鱈a M叩rquez
name: Barry
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/22
date added: 2015/07/23
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
This was my first ever Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel (or novella really). It tells the story of a strange doctor whose funeral we attend at the very beginning. We then jump back into the story of who this doctor is and how he has affected the entire village of Macondo. A colonel decides to give the doctor this funeral even though the entire village believes the doctor should be left to rot. The novel is narrated by the colonel, his daughter, and her son.

The atmosphere of this novel teeters on the edge of magical realism. While nothing overly magical happens, all the events have a somewhat mystical air about them (its the same kind of atmosphere that you find in Toni Morrisons novels). Garcia Marquezs highly unique and simplistic prose aids in the creation of this world.

I do have some qualms with the structure of this book however. Garcia Marquez employs a strange multiple stream-of-consciousness narrative between the three narrators which honestly causes nothing but confusion. You can be a couple of pages into a chapter before you know whos actually telling the story. There were a couple of chapters where I actually had no idea whose POV I was reading. This is a very early work by Garcia Marquez so Ill forgive him for this strange narrative; he hasn't become our beloved Gabo yet.

Overall I really did enjoy this book. Its clear that it is somewhat of a flawed work but its flaws can simply be put down to youth and inexperience (this was written when Gabo was only 21). I'm excited to see what Garcia Marquez holds for me in the future.

]]> Double Indemnity 56616 Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1935, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.

Walter Huff was an insurance salesman with an unfailing instinct for clients who might be in trouble, and his instinct led him to Phyllis Nirdlinger. Phyllis wanted to buy an accident policy on her husband. Then she wanted her husband to have an accident. Walter wanted Phyllis. To get her, he would arrange the perfect murder and betray everything he had ever lived for.]]> 115 James M. Cain 0679723226 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 The Postman Always Rings Twice. They share suspiciously similar ending devices which might put some off but I think that they work well considering the utter shortness of both works. While I can't say that this was my favourite Cain novel it is certainly one of his most popular and highly influential. I think I'll stick with the film. ]]> 4.07 1936 Double Indemnity
author: James M. Cain
name: Barry
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/22
date added: 2015/07/22
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
The story of an insurance salesman who teams up with a female client in order to kill her husband and bag the insurance money. Written in Cain's signature quick-fire prose and dialogue, this roman-noir harks back to Cain's earlier work The Postman Always Rings Twice. They share suspiciously similar ending devices which might put some off but I think that they work well considering the utter shortness of both works. While I can't say that this was my favourite Cain novel it is certainly one of his most popular and highly influential. I think I'll stick with the film.
]]> The Lover 19095990 A sensational international bestseller, and winner of Frances� coveted Prix Goncourt, The Lover� is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girls family apart.

Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society.

A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.

]]> 130 Marguerite Duras 0007393202 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Lolita, Duras writes a beautiful autobiographical tale of love and youth. The narrator recalls her youth when she, at fifteen, enters a relationship with Chinese man in his late twenties. Duras' prose gushes with life and verve. Her narrator seems almost omnipresent as she describes her family, her youth, and her travels. This is a resplendent little one-sitting novel that flutters in your hands. ]]> 3.51 1984 The Lover
author: Marguerite Duras
name: Barry
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/21
date added: 2015/07/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In a novel that is oft compared to Nabokov's Lolita, Duras writes a beautiful autobiographical tale of love and youth. The narrator recalls her youth when she, at fifteen, enters a relationship with Chinese man in his late twenties. Duras' prose gushes with life and verve. Her narrator seems almost omnipresent as she describes her family, her youth, and her travels. This is a resplendent little one-sitting novel that flutters in your hands.
]]> Serenade 1861022 183 James M. Cain 0394725859 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015
I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel. It might possibly be my favourite of Cain's works. It's wonderfully paced with highly memorable characters and numerous conversations about opera from Carmen to Pagliacci to the protagonist's utter disdain for Rossini. I highly recommend this novel to those who are new to the hardboiled genre. ]]> 3.56 1937 Serenade
author: James M. Cain
name: Barry
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1937
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/21
date added: 2015/07/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
This is a real hidden gem. I probably wouldn't have even come across this work if it weren't in my bind-up of Cain's novels. The story is of a haggard opera singer who gets with an Indian prostitute in Mexico. They decide to try and make it back to America where our protagonist makes it big with his wonderful operatic talent. However, his past catches up with him and things turn, well, hardboiled.

I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel. It might possibly be my favourite of Cain's works. It's wonderfully paced with highly memorable characters and numerous conversations about opera from Carmen to Pagliacci to the protagonist's utter disdain for Rossini. I highly recommend this novel to those who are new to the hardboiled genre.
]]> Catch-22 11437531
Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch...]]> 519 Joseph Heller 0099529122 Barry 5 20th-century, read-in-2015 Catch-22 on my bookshelf for years. It was one of those novels that I've said, "oh I'll get around to that in 2012". It didn't happen. "Maybe 2013". Nope. And so on until just a couple of days ago. I've got to stop putting books off.

Rarely has a piece of literature ticked so many of my boxes. Satire, farce, gallows humour, irreverence, it's as if this book were written entirely for me. I loved every word on every page of this book. I cannot find a single miniscule fault anywhere within the narrative or the prose or the characterisation or the flow or the humour. I can say without any hesitation that Catch-22 is a perfect novel. It was love at first sight.]]> 3.92 1961 Catch-22
author: Joseph Heller
name: Barry
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2015/07/21
date added: 2015/07/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I have had Catch-22 on my bookshelf for years. It was one of those novels that I've said, "oh I'll get around to that in 2012". It didn't happen. "Maybe 2013". Nope. And so on until just a couple of days ago. I've got to stop putting books off.

Rarely has a piece of literature ticked so many of my boxes. Satire, farce, gallows humour, irreverence, it's as if this book were written entirely for me. I loved every word on every page of this book. I cannot find a single miniscule fault anywhere within the narrative or the prose or the characterisation or the flow or the humour. I can say without any hesitation that Catch-22 is a perfect novel. It was love at first sight.
]]> <![CDATA[The Postman Always Rings Twice]]> 25807 The Stranger - is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an erotic obsession, and into a murder.]]> 116 James M. Cain 0752861743 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 The Postman Always Rings Twice is never boring because the plot moves so fast that you barely have time to register what happens. This fully developed narrative is compressed into 84-pages in my edition and feels more fully rounded and memorable than many full length novels. Tragic and bloody, this story has an ending that will leave you shaken and you'll have a damned hard time trying to forget it.]]> 3.79 1934 The Postman Always Rings Twice
author: James M. Cain
name: Barry
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/20
date added: 2015/07/20
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
A hard-boiled noir that inspired Camus, The Postman Always Rings Twice is never boring because the plot moves so fast that you barely have time to register what happens. This fully developed narrative is compressed into 84-pages in my edition and feels more fully rounded and memorable than many full length novels. Tragic and bloody, this story has an ending that will leave you shaken and you'll have a damned hard time trying to forget it.
]]> Henderson the Rain King 25932729 341 Saul Bellow Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.00 1959 Henderson the Rain King
author: Saul Bellow
name: Barry
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2015/05/30
date added: 2015/07/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Holden Caulfield goes to Africa.
]]> The Centaur 25932041 In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacher George Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone with his teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his son grow & change as he himself begins to lose touch with his life. Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, & his relationship to the Titan Prometheus, "The Centaur" is one of Updike's most brilliant novels.--From the Paperback edition.]]> 270 John Updike Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015
The narratives that we are presented with can be read as coming-of-age stories. The son coming of age and facing the harsh reality of life and the father coming of age and facing the harsh reality of death. Updike weaves both lives seamlessly which demonstrates his deftness with prose. Not once was I bored with this novel. It harks back to the stories of the time from Salinger and Isherwood and the like. Readers with a penchant for Greek mythology and stories of post-war America will thoroughly enjoy this novel, as I did. ]]> 3.75 1963 The Centaur
author: John Updike
name: Barry
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/18
date added: 2015/07/18
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
In this modern retelling of ancient Greek myth ( la Joyce's Ulysses) Updike presents us with the famed myth of Chiron, the centaur. Set in late-40s small town America we have the stories of George Caldwell, a teacher in his 50s, and his son Peter, 15 years old and laden with psoriasis. The father's and son's narratives switch every second chapter with the father's narrative being in the third-person and the son's in first-person.

The narratives that we are presented with can be read as coming-of-age stories. The son coming of age and facing the harsh reality of life and the father coming of age and facing the harsh reality of death. Updike weaves both lives seamlessly which demonstrates his deftness with prose. Not once was I bored with this novel. It harks back to the stories of the time from Salinger and Isherwood and the like. Readers with a penchant for Greek mythology and stories of post-war America will thoroughly enjoy this novel, as I did.
]]> The Professor 773147
The Professor was the first novel that Charlotte Bront谷 completed. Rejected by the publisher who took on the work of her sisters in 1846--Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights--it remained unpublished until 1857, two years after Charlotte Bront谷's death. Like Villette (1853), The Professor is based on her experiences as a language student in Brussels in 1842. Told from the point of view of William Crimsworth, the only male narrator that she used, the work formulated a new aesthetic that questioned many of the presuppositions of Victorian society. Bront谷's hero escapes from a humiliating clerkship in a Yorkshire mill to find work as a teacher in Belgium, where he falls in love with an impoverished student-teacher, who is perhaps the author's most realistic feminist heroine. The Professor endures today as both a harbinger of Bront谷's later novels and a compelling read in its own right.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.]]> 316 Charlotte Bront谷 0140433112 Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015 Jane Eyre and Villette. However this novel pretty much lacks everything that made both of those novels such classics. It's a basic 19th-century romance novel with Charlotte this time writing from a male POV. Even though this is the second shortest Bront谷 novel (Agnes Grey is the shortest) it still felt vastly overlong. While bits of humour seep in now and again, leaving you with a faint smile, they are not enough to save this somewhat boring misstep. On the plus side however, this is a fairly easy read and won't trouble anyone who isn't familiar with Victorian literature. Reading it though will explain to you why this wasn't published in Charlotte's lifetime. ]]> 3.27 1857 The Professor
author: Charlotte Bront谷
name: Barry
average rating: 3.27
book published: 1857
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/17
date added: 2015/07/17
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Charlotte's first attempt at a novel comes across as... well... an attempt. It can be clearly seen that elements from this novel reappear in both Jane Eyre and Villette. However this novel pretty much lacks everything that made both of those novels such classics. It's a basic 19th-century romance novel with Charlotte this time writing from a male POV. Even though this is the second shortest Bront谷 novel (Agnes Grey is the shortest) it still felt vastly overlong. While bits of humour seep in now and again, leaving you with a faint smile, they are not enough to save this somewhat boring misstep. On the plus side however, this is a fairly easy read and won't trouble anyone who isn't familiar with Victorian literature. Reading it though will explain to you why this wasn't published in Charlotte's lifetime.
]]> The Hobbit (Middle Earth, #1) 20927204 Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out on to the floor when he caught a sudden thin ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to be asleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance...

Whisked away from his comfortable, unambitious life in his hobbit-hole in Bag End by Gandalf the wizard and a company of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon...]]> 319 J.R.R. Tolkien Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015
I was apprehensive when I started this. I was introduced to hobbits and dwarves and wizards and I very nearly quit on page 16. However I decided to continue with one thought circling in my head, "it's just a bit of fun". Whenever I came across a passage with trolls or dragons or the such I remembered that it's all in good fun. Slowly I began enjoying myself as the pages went on and I found myself in some ways engrossed in this novel, only to be taken out of the narrative by another fucking song. I held my tongue and finished it. Somewhat relieved but also proud that I got through it. I suppose I did enjoy it in parts. It certainly isn't bad. Far from it. However I might need a bit of coaxing to begin that other series of his. ]]> 4.30 1937 The Hobbit (Middle Earth, #1)
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Barry
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1937
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/15
date added: 2015/07/15
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I really hate fantasy. However I do consider myself a "reader". Therefore I feel obliged to read the works of Tolkien cos well... he's a pretty major name in 20th-century English literature. *sighs* The things I do for the love of books.

I was apprehensive when I started this. I was introduced to hobbits and dwarves and wizards and I very nearly quit on page 16. However I decided to continue with one thought circling in my head, "it's just a bit of fun". Whenever I came across a passage with trolls or dragons or the such I remembered that it's all in good fun. Slowly I began enjoying myself as the pages went on and I found myself in some ways engrossed in this novel, only to be taken out of the narrative by another fucking song. I held my tongue and finished it. Somewhat relieved but also proud that I got through it. I suppose I did enjoy it in parts. It certainly isn't bad. Far from it. However I might need a bit of coaxing to begin that other series of his.
]]> The Birds and Other Stories 2703174 The Birds was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verit' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .]]> 239 Daphne du Maurier 0140019413 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 fucking mountaineering and it's so bad that it literally put me off reading anything for days. In fact, all of the other stories in this collection are strangely sub-par. The only other somewhat readable story in here is last one and that's barely ten pages long. This collection is far inferior to Du Maurier's later collection Don't Look Now and Other Stories. It's a real disappointment. ]]> 3.83 1952 The Birds and Other Stories
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Barry
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1952
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/13
date added: 2015/07/13
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
The title story of this collection is quite good. I mean, we've all seen The Birds but the original story is slightly different. It's by far the best story in here. The next story is a 60-page story about fucking mountaineering and it's so bad that it literally put me off reading anything for days. In fact, all of the other stories in this collection are strangely sub-par. The only other somewhat readable story in here is last one and that's barely ten pages long. This collection is far inferior to Du Maurier's later collection Don't Look Now and Other Stories. It's a real disappointment.
]]> The Company She Keeps 3842942 224 Mary McCarthy 0140023275 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.67 1942 The Company She Keeps
author: Mary McCarthy
name: Barry
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1942
rating: 2
read at: 2015/07/03
date added: 2015/07/02
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
A young woman gets divorced and decides to live life as a Bohemian in New York in the 1930s. If only the book were as good as that synopsis sounds. The novel is split into six vignettes telling the story of our heroine through the men she meets. I thought this would be up my alley but I found it to be quite boring really. I did enjoy the numerous conversations about Trotsky, however. And I liked how it gave us a glimpse into life in New York in the 30s which is never a bad thing. It's a gallant first novel though and I applaud it for that.
]]> Transparent Things 2121930 107 Vladimir Nabokov 0140039686 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.73 1972 Transparent Things
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Barry
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1972
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/02
date added: 2015/07/02
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Revolving around man's numerous excursions to Switzerland, this incredibly short novel serves as the perfect paint-sampler into Nabokov's later works. As with most of Nabokov's work, the plot is weird and highly original and of course his prose complements it perfectly. Sometimes I read Nabokov and I come across a phrase or a piece of writing describing something and it makes me stop, because it is so simple but so genius that I cannot comprehend how the human mind ever thought of such a series of words. That happened a lot in this work. Nabokov was a genius.
]]> <![CDATA[Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid]]> 2119539 272 Malcolm Lowry 0140032959 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015 lived for. The first half of this novel is somewhat plot reliant but as we slip into the second half (and especially the third act) plot becomes tertiary. It is about the mind of a writer and how that mind is usually not incredibly sound. The prose reminds me of Pynchon with its gigantic solid blocks of text and almost lucid narrative at times. I really, really enjoyed this novel but it is definitely not for everybody. I need more Lowry. ]]> 3.58 1968 Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid
author: Malcolm Lowry
name: Barry
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2015/07/01
date added: 2015/07/02
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
A fictionalised version of a real journey that the author and this wife took to Mexico which was left unfinished when Lowry died. Thankfully it was edited together and here we have this fantastic book about turmoil and disaster and longing and Poe. This book is infested with literary references that I just lived for. The first half of this novel is somewhat plot reliant but as we slip into the second half (and especially the third act) plot becomes tertiary. It is about the mind of a writer and how that mind is usually not incredibly sound. The prose reminds me of Pynchon with its gigantic solid blocks of text and almost lucid narrative at times. I really, really enjoyed this novel but it is definitely not for everybody. I need more Lowry.
]]> Don't Look Now 50242
Venice... Crete... Ireland... Jerusa- lem... East Anglia: the settings are as varied as the plots. A married couple enjoying a holiday in Venice are swept helplessly into a tragedy played out against a back-drop of murky canals and back- alleys. A middle-aged schoolmaster gets involved with an American couple whose fishing expeditions are very far from being what they appear. A young actress, setting out on an impulsive but innocent quest, blunders into a situation which sweeps away all the roots of her youthful self- confidence. One story, subtly mocking, follows the vicissitudes of an ill-assorted little party of pilgrims in Jerusalem; another explores the meaning of life and death in a brilliantly original tale.

Such unremarkable people, following their unexceptionable paths-yet all caught up in situations beyond the boun- daries of their experience and outside their control. Compelling, exciting, this collec- tion shows once again what mastery of the short story Daphne du Maurier has.]]> 303 Daphne du Maurier 0140035907 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Don't Look Now, Not After Midnight, and A Border-Line Case) are absolutely wonderful. They're very atmospheric and, at times, chilling. I'd recommend this whole collection on those stories alone. However, it's the final two works (The Way of the Cross and The Breakthrough) that really let down this collection and thus rob it of a four-star rating. They're two bland stories that don't really offer much and only exist to disappoint.]]> 3.91 1971 Don't Look Now
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Barry
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1971
rating: 3
read at: 2015/07/01
date added: 2015/07/01
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
The first three stories in this collection (Don't Look Now, Not After Midnight, and A Border-Line Case) are absolutely wonderful. They're very atmospheric and, at times, chilling. I'd recommend this whole collection on those stories alone. However, it's the final two works (The Way of the Cross and The Breakthrough) that really let down this collection and thus rob it of a four-star rating. They're two bland stories that don't really offer much and only exist to disappoint.
]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]> 765385
1994 edition here]]> 281 Mark Twain 0140620648 Barry 3 19th-century, read-in-2015 the most annoying character in all of literature and say that this is a great American classic for a reason. It's captivating, it's funny, and it's never boring. While it may not have aged very well, it's still an important text that covers a time when America was in its adolescent stage. ]]> 3.72 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
author: Mark Twain
name: Barry
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1884
rating: 3
read at: 2015/06/30
date added: 2015/06/30
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I really quite enjoyed this well-written satire of slavery-era America. I reads a lot like a Dickens novel, very episodic and with a youthful protagonist. I'll put aside the fact that Huck Finn may be the most annoying character in all of literature and say that this is a great American classic for a reason. It's captivating, it's funny, and it's never boring. While it may not have aged very well, it's still an important text that covers a time when America was in its adolescent stage.
]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 7489370 success de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.]]> 242 Oscar Wilde 014119264X Barry 4 19th-century, read-in-2015
I really rather enjoyed this. Well, obviously. I mean, did you honestly think I wasn't going to like The Picture of Dorian Gray? It's by Oscar Wilde for fuck's sake. His prose is like spilled honey flowing across a wooden table and waterfalling onto the floor beneath. The viscous liquid flowing slowly over the edge. His plot, perfectly paced, moves slowly as we wade deeper and deeper into Dorian Gray's maniacal life. Over the edge we go as everything goes wrong, there's death, there's pain, there's long conversations about art. We hit the floor as we finish and we see nothing but sweetness amassing around us as we escape from Wilde's prose. Putting the book down you see the light has hit the stream and it glows and it shines and it sparkles and you stand there mesmorised by what you're witnessing and you put the book back on your shelf and feel sorry for the book you read next.

So, yeah, it's good. ]]> 4.09 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Barry
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2015/06/29
date added: 2015/06/29
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
So I read all of Wilde's plays a couple of years ago but for some reason I never read this at the time. This is probably the number one most requested book for me to read. So I read it. Are ya happy now!? ARE YA!?

I really rather enjoyed this. Well, obviously. I mean, did you honestly think I wasn't going to like The Picture of Dorian Gray? It's by Oscar Wilde for fuck's sake. His prose is like spilled honey flowing across a wooden table and waterfalling onto the floor beneath. The viscous liquid flowing slowly over the edge. His plot, perfectly paced, moves slowly as we wade deeper and deeper into Dorian Gray's maniacal life. Over the edge we go as everything goes wrong, there's death, there's pain, there's long conversations about art. We hit the floor as we finish and we see nothing but sweetness amassing around us as we escape from Wilde's prose. Putting the book down you see the light has hit the stream and it glows and it shines and it sparkles and you stand there mesmorised by what you're witnessing and you put the book back on your shelf and feel sorry for the book you read next.

So, yeah, it's good.
]]> <![CDATA[The Body in the Library (Miss Marple, #3)]]> 816132 160 Agatha Christie 0007208448 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015
Overall, I enjoyed this, like I do with most of Christie's books. She really can't do any wrong! ]]> 3.78 1942 The Body in the Library (Miss Marple, #3)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Barry
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2015/06/28
date added: 2015/06/28
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
There's a small note to the reader at the very beginning of this novel in which Agatha Christie basically writes, "the trope of the body in the library is very common throughout detective fiction so I wrote this novel to fuck shit up". Good old Agatha. This is a Miss Marple story... well... I think it is, because our beloved Miss Jane Marple is in fact missing from quite a lot of this novel. Thankfully the crime is exciting enough for us to overlook that minor setback. It's a classic Christie, foolproof and sturdy plot with a cast of both memorable and useless characters. However there are scenes in this that I did find rather... graphic... for your typical Christie novel. I won't spoil it but there is a scene set in a quarry and it is quite out there for Agatha.

Overall, I enjoyed this, like I do with most of Christie's books. She really can't do any wrong!
]]> <![CDATA[Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #3)]]> 818471 199 Douglas Adams 0330491202 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.77 1982 Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #3)
author: Douglas Adams
name: Barry
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1982
rating: 2
read at: 2015/05/31
date added: 2015/05/30
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I'm getting very bored of this series. While I like the characters and I understand the humour, I'm not laughing. I read these novels with a smile, not a smirk.
]]> Kim Kardashian Selfish 22716439 Keeping Up with the Kardashians she has acquired a massive following on social media through which Kim connects with her fans on a daily basis sharing details of her life with her selfie photography. For the first time in print, this book presents some of Kims favorite selfies in one volume that will be enjoyed by all her fans.]]> 448 Kim Kardashian West 0789329204 Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015 Sex for my generation.

Selfish chronicles the life of Kim from 2006 up to her marriage to Kanye West in 2014. Many of the selfies come along with captions. It's interesting reading. We find out that Kim has quite the good memory. She states that she can remember exactly who did her hair and make-up by just looking at a photo. She also knows exactly where and when each one was taken.

Throughout Selfish we watch Kardashian transform from a B-list socialite who was trying to fight off the release of her sex tape to the multi-billionaire powerhouse that she is today. Everyone knows the name Kardashian, whether you like that fact or not. Page after page we learn more about Kardashian. We also find that she is more than willing to make herself the butt of the joke. Selfies where she is bright red with sunburn or pulling a face and crossing her eyes behind her mother Kris show that this is not a naval-gazing glorified paper Instagram, it's a dossier of Kimberly Kardashian West.

This is more than just a book of pictures though. It's a memoir, an autobiography of one of pop culture's most important figures of the last century. Of course you can be stubborn and spit every time you hear about the Kardashians but is it not better to embrace modern day culture instead of being a hermitic curmudgeon who tries to ignore everything around them?

The publication of Selfish is a milestone in our modern day popular culture. This is celebrity. Call it vain, call it narcissistic, call it whatever you please. But remember, this is the world in which we are living. There's no point in trying to ignore it, that is a truly Sisyphean task. Selfish isn't selfish. It's our world. Our society. Embrace it and be happy.]]> 3.37 2015 Kim Kardashian Selfish
author: Kim Kardashian West
name: Barry
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2015/05/06
date added: 2015/05/06
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Kim Kardashian West is one of the most divisive figures of the 21st century. Here she presents us with a book comprised entirely of selfies. It's Madonna's Sex for my generation.

Selfish chronicles the life of Kim from 2006 up to her marriage to Kanye West in 2014. Many of the selfies come along with captions. It's interesting reading. We find out that Kim has quite the good memory. She states that she can remember exactly who did her hair and make-up by just looking at a photo. She also knows exactly where and when each one was taken.

Throughout Selfish we watch Kardashian transform from a B-list socialite who was trying to fight off the release of her sex tape to the multi-billionaire powerhouse that she is today. Everyone knows the name Kardashian, whether you like that fact or not. Page after page we learn more about Kardashian. We also find that she is more than willing to make herself the butt of the joke. Selfies where she is bright red with sunburn or pulling a face and crossing her eyes behind her mother Kris show that this is not a naval-gazing glorified paper Instagram, it's a dossier of Kimberly Kardashian West.

This is more than just a book of pictures though. It's a memoir, an autobiography of one of pop culture's most important figures of the last century. Of course you can be stubborn and spit every time you hear about the Kardashians but is it not better to embrace modern day culture instead of being a hermitic curmudgeon who tries to ignore everything around them?

The publication of Selfish is a milestone in our modern day popular culture. This is celebrity. Call it vain, call it narcissistic, call it whatever you please. But remember, this is the world in which we are living. There's no point in trying to ignore it, that is a truly Sisyphean task. Selfish isn't selfish. It's our world. Our society. Embrace it and be happy.
]]> <![CDATA[All My Friends Are Superheroes]]> 12407928 108 Andrew Kaufman 1770560106 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.47 2003 All My Friends Are Superheroes
author: Andrew Kaufman
name: Barry
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2015/05/06
date added: 2015/05/06
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
This is such a nice, short fairytale. Nothing more. You can read it in less than a half hour. Makes you feel happy and full of awe at Kaufman's wonderful story writing ability.
]]> Carmilla 48037
But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day� Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.]]> 108 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 0809510839 Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015
(Also I love the fact that two of the most pioneering and influential works of vampire fiction were written by two Irish guys, go us!)]]> 3.88 1872 Carmilla
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Barry
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1872
rating: 2
read at: 2015/05/06
date added: 2015/05/06
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I'm glad this was a novella. While the plot is interesting and the writing is just superb the entire concept of "oh she's a vampire, no wait, she's a lesbian vampire" gets tired quite quickly. However this is one of those works that you have to read just off of its sheer influence alone. The trope of the lesbian vampire was so important in early horror movies, B-movies and especially Giallo horror.

(Also I love the fact that two of the most pioneering and influential works of vampire fiction were written by two Irish guys, go us!)
]]> <![CDATA[Naked Lunch (The Restored Text)]]> 8335272 Naked Lunched is an exhilarating ride into the darkest recesses of human psyche. Told with wit and humour by Bill Lee, an Ivy League-educated narcotics addicts, it is the story of his flight south from New York to the drug-and-sex-soaked retreat in Tangiers where ambiguous Good and enticing Evil vie for the human soul. Welcome to Interzone...]]> 289 William S. Burroughs 0007341903 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 3.25 1959 Naked Lunch (The Restored Text)
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Barry
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2015/05/04
date added: 2015/05/04
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Oh boy. One part of me wants to throw this novel away because some parts are written like a 15-year-old's first foray into erotic fanfiction while another part of me wants to hail this as a masterpiece of filth that would make John Waters sick. So I'm going to settle in the middle. There are some parts of this novel that made me go "what the actual fuck" but I like that. I like it when literally every boundary is pushed as far as it can go. The prose is nonsensical and disorientating which is probably what Burroughs wanted. He was a Beat of course. I enjoyed this novel. The majority of it makes absolutely no sense and it isn't meant to.
]]> Yes Please 23521184 Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amys charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.]]> 332 Amy Poehler 1447283287 Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.99 2014 Yes Please
author: Amy Poehler
name: Barry
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2015/05/01
date added: 2015/05/03
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Another fun read from the subgenre I like to call, "Memoirs written by women who worked on SNL". It's overall a fun and humourous read. It may have needed some editing and could have lost a couple chapters but as a whole it's a memorable memoir. It's fun and that's all it needed to be.
]]> The Days of Surprise 23346805 Paul Durcan never imagined he would be clasped by a woman again, but life is full of surprises! After all, would it surprise you to learn that at the US Ambassador's Residence in Dublin his libido almost destroyed the Peace Process? There is a new Pope, too, a 'man of constant surprise', although in St Peter's Square Durcan encounters a monk wholly lacking in the Holy Spirit.
Elsewhere he muses upon the 'pre-crucifixion scenario' of being prepared for surgery, the gift of a malacca cane, the joy of retail therapy, the horror that is wheel-clamping, the 'starry mystique' of the weather forecaster Jean Byrne, suicide, bird-watching, stammering, art, Mayo, New York City, New Zealand, murder in Syria and the commemoration of 1916. Perhaps the greatest surprise is the voice of the late Seamus Heaney coming down his 'Are you all right down there, Poet Durcan?' The Days of Surprise is proof that the great poet of contemporary Ireland is in fine fettle.]]> 176 Paul Durcan 1846559715 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.92 2015 The Days of Surprise
author: Paul Durcan
name: Barry
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/24
date added: 2015/04/24
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Paul Durcan is one of my favourite poets. In this, his latest collection, he returns on top form. Durcan is poet who is not afraid of comedy. He writes some of the funniest verses in modern poetry and his ability to capture the voice, the vernacular of the people he meets is wonderful. There is also great sadness in his work. You can be busting a gut laughing at one poem and then be moved to tears by the poem on the opposite page. His versatility is renowned. Some of my favourite from this collection are, "Ash Wednesday, Dublin, 13 February 2013", "The W.B. Yeats Shopping Centre", "Irish Bankers Shoot Dead Fifty-Seven Homeless Children", "1916 Not to Be Commemorated", and "Breaking News".
]]> God Help the Child 24546592

At the centre: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally Sweetness, Bride's mother herself, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that 'what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.'


A fierce and provocative novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.]]> 208 Toni Morrison Barry 4 21st-century, read-in-2015
Morrison imbues this novel with her renowned mastery of prose which allows the reader to sweep through this novel in only a sitting or two. This novel is a well-wound timepiece with every cog (characters, narrative, emotion) working off each other in perfect harmony and synchronisation, in the end altogether forming a beautiful work.

This book is a true brilliant work of structure and form. Split into many different vignettes, some in first-person and some in third-person, the narrative jumps back and forward in both time and location. However, each piece is a patch on a cloak and by the end of the novel we are left with a sprawling blanket.

God Help the Child is, thus far, my favourite new release of 2015. Short, succinct, savage. It shows that, even since The Bluest Eye was written 45 years ago, Morrison has never lost a single gram of genius, intellect or bite. ]]> 3.81 2015 God Help the Child
author: Toni Morrison
name: Barry
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2015/04/23
date added: 2015/04/24
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
Everybody bow down, Toni Morrison still reigns. In this short novel, we meet Bride. A young woman who, as a child, testified in a court case which led to the imprisonment of an alleged child abuser. Twenty years later, Bride tries to make peace with the woman whom she sent to prison. I'll stop there and allow you to read the rest of the novel.

Morrison imbues this novel with her renowned mastery of prose which allows the reader to sweep through this novel in only a sitting or two. This novel is a well-wound timepiece with every cog (characters, narrative, emotion) working off each other in perfect harmony and synchronisation, in the end altogether forming a beautiful work.

This book is a true brilliant work of structure and form. Split into many different vignettes, some in first-person and some in third-person, the narrative jumps back and forward in both time and location. However, each piece is a patch on a cloak and by the end of the novel we are left with a sprawling blanket.

God Help the Child is, thus far, my favourite new release of 2015. Short, succinct, savage. It shows that, even since The Bluest Eye was written 45 years ago, Morrison has never lost a single gram of genius, intellect or bite.
]]> Beyond Good and Evil 12321 Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics.

Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects the tradition of Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche demonstrates that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality'. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual imposes their own 'will to power' upon the world.

This edition includes a commentary on the text by the translator and Michael Tanner's introduction, which explains some of the more abstract passages in Beyond Good and Evil.

Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) became the chair of classical philology at Basel University at the age of 24 until his bad health forced him to retire in 1879. He divorced himself from society until his final collapse in 1899 when he became insane. A powerfully original thinker, Nietzsche's influence on subsequent writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Jean-Paul Sartre, was considerable.

If you enjoyed Beyond Good and Evil you might like Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, also available in Penguin Classics.

"One of the greatest books of a very great thinker." Michael Tanner]]> 240 Friedrich Nietzsche 014044923X Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015 NotAllPhilosophers]]> 4.05 1886 Beyond Good and Evil
author: Friedrich Nietzsche
name: Barry
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1886
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/22
date added: 2015/04/22
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Nietzsche, the original Meninist. #NotAllPhilosophers
]]> Pale Fire 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov Barry 5 20th-century, read-in-2015
This novel, which basically rejects every element and characteristic of our common conceptions of "novels", is a masterpiece of form and structure. It is a book made up entirely of footnotes. In the beginning, we are presented with a poem, a 999-line poem called Pale Fire. The "novel" part of this "novel" resides in the commentary and footnotes on this poem.

Nabokov constructs an entire narrative, complete with rounded characters and locations, within the line-by-line commentary of the poem. It is wonderful. I cannot sing its praises any higher. Like in Lolita we are introduced to a less than admirable, unreliable narrator Charles Kinbote. Slowly he begins his commentary on his friend's poem, Pale Fire. However, as the footnotes pile up, we stray further and further away from academic citation and we are plunged into Kinbote's megalomaniacal and deranged mind. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, we have nothing to grab and the darkness evades every word.

Pale Fire is a true masterpiece. The quintessential anti-novel. Its utter subversion of what we know as literature can only be comparable to Joyce's Ulysses. And like Ulysees, I can say without doubt that this is one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century, if not, all time.]]> 4.17 1962 Pale Fire
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Barry
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2015/04/21
date added: 2015/04/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Stop it Nabokov, you're making every other writer on this planet look terrible.

This novel, which basically rejects every element and characteristic of our common conceptions of "novels", is a masterpiece of form and structure. It is a book made up entirely of footnotes. In the beginning, we are presented with a poem, a 999-line poem called Pale Fire. The "novel" part of this "novel" resides in the commentary and footnotes on this poem.

Nabokov constructs an entire narrative, complete with rounded characters and locations, within the line-by-line commentary of the poem. It is wonderful. I cannot sing its praises any higher. Like in Lolita we are introduced to a less than admirable, unreliable narrator Charles Kinbote. Slowly he begins his commentary on his friend's poem, Pale Fire. However, as the footnotes pile up, we stray further and further away from academic citation and we are plunged into Kinbote's megalomaniacal and deranged mind. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, we have nothing to grab and the darkness evades every word.

Pale Fire is a true masterpiece. The quintessential anti-novel. Its utter subversion of what we know as literature can only be comparable to Joyce's Ulysses. And like Ulysees, I can say without doubt that this is one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century, if not, all time.
]]> Under the Net 907650 286 Iris Murdoch 0099429071 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 ad nauseum. It was a bit of a struggle to finish. However this book has not put me off Murdoch's work thankfully so I will be revisiting her again sometime in the future. ]]> 3.74 1954 Under the Net
author: Iris Murdoch
name: Barry
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1954
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/21
date added: 2015/04/21
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
At the beginning I was enjoying this semi-farcical/semi-philosophical novel. I love the ridiculousness of the entire plot and the characters but after a while it just became a bore. Once I hit the last hundred page stretch I found myself picking it up, reading ten pages, and putting it down again ad nauseum. It was a bit of a struggle to finish. However this book has not put me off Murdoch's work thankfully so I will be revisiting her again sometime in the future.
]]> Song of Solomon 820666 337 Toni Morrison 0099768410 Barry 4 20th-century, read-in-2015 finally read my first four-star book. You can always trust Toni Morrison to deliver even when you think all hope is lost. I think Song of Solomon is my favourite Morrison novel thus far. This novel just flows with greatness. I feel that I enjoyed this book more than let's say, Beloved, because the time period in which this is set (the 1930s through to the 60s) is an era with which I'm relatively familiar. She references the murder of Emmett Till and the rise of Malcolm X for instance. I felt more of a connect because of the historical time setting. In many ways I found that this novel almost mirrors the early chapters of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I'm not sure if this was intentional though. I really found this novel to be "unputdownable", more so than the other Morrison novels that I've read. If I were to choose a good starting place for Morrison virgins, I'd choose Song of Solomon. I really enjoyed this one.]]> 4.11 1977 Song of Solomon
author: Toni Morrison
name: Barry
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2015/04/18
date added: 2015/04/20
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Almost four whole months into 2015 and I've finally read my first four-star book. You can always trust Toni Morrison to deliver even when you think all hope is lost. I think Song of Solomon is my favourite Morrison novel thus far. This novel just flows with greatness. I feel that I enjoyed this book more than let's say, Beloved, because the time period in which this is set (the 1930s through to the 60s) is an era with which I'm relatively familiar. She references the murder of Emmett Till and the rise of Malcolm X for instance. I felt more of a connect because of the historical time setting. In many ways I found that this novel almost mirrors the early chapters of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I'm not sure if this was intentional though. I really found this novel to be "unputdownable", more so than the other Morrison novels that I've read. If I were to choose a good starting place for Morrison virgins, I'd choose Song of Solomon. I really enjoyed this one.
]]> <![CDATA[Evil under the Sun (Hercule Poirot, #24)]]> 2202498 252 Agatha Christie 0007274556 Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 Evil under the Sun is another classic addition to Agatha Christie's flawless bibliography. However the solution to the case may take a lot of convincing to be feasible. I read Christie for escapism and enjoyment and it delivered on both. ]]> 3.94 1941 Evil under the Sun (Hercule Poirot, #24)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Barry
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1941
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/09
date added: 2015/04/19
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Perhaps not one of the most riveting of Poirot's cases nonetheless Evil under the Sun is another classic addition to Agatha Christie's flawless bibliography. However the solution to the case may take a lot of convincing to be feasible. I read Christie for escapism and enjoyment and it delivered on both.
]]> Howards End 20439204 307 E.M. Forster Barry 2 20th-century, read-in-2015 Howards End progressed I found myself caring less and less about what was going on. By the time I was 50% of the way through I was just waiting for it to finish. I felt the exact same way about Where Angels Fear to Tread. Maybe it's Forster's prose? I don't know. I think Forster and I are going to have a turbulent relationship. ]]> 3.69 1910 Howards End
author: E.M. Forster
name: Barry
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1910
rating: 2
read at: 2015/04/12
date added: 2015/04/12
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I started out liking this. I was even thinking this was going to be my first four-star novel of the year. However, as Howards End progressed I found myself caring less and less about what was going on. By the time I was 50% of the way through I was just waiting for it to finish. I felt the exact same way about Where Angels Fear to Tread. Maybe it's Forster's prose? I don't know. I think Forster and I are going to have a turbulent relationship.
]]> The Awakening 1967357 221 Kate Chopin 1857151321 Barry 3 19th-century, read-in-2015 The Awakening is a quick and affecting novel (especially with that ending). While I do think that it may be slightly subject to over-hype, there is no contesting its importance as an early feminist work. And on that account, I would recommend it. ]]> 3.73 1899 The Awakening
author: Kate Chopin
name: Barry
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1899
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/10
date added: 2015/04/10
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Even though the entire plot of this novel can be summed up as, "woman sits around and does nothing while having feminine thoughts", there is a resounding beauty in its monotony. The Awakening is a quick and affecting novel (especially with that ending). While I do think that it may be slightly subject to over-hype, there is no contesting its importance as an early feminist work. And on that account, I would recommend it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot, #4)]]> 547523
This third Poirot mystery has all the author's trademark touches: a pithy portrait of English village life, a cast of unforgettable characters, and a plot of Byzantine complexity. Due to its shocking twist ending, the book remains one of the most controversial mysteries ever written.]]> 320 Agatha Christie 0007234376 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 4.28 1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot, #4)
author: Agatha Christie
name: Barry
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1926
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/07
date added: 2015/04/07
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Another all-round enjoyable Christie novel and the first time that I've ever guessed whodunnit! I'm getting good at these. Memorable for a twist ending that may cause kidney failure in the unknowing reader.
]]> The Handmaid's Tale 5104 320 Margaret Atwood 0435124099 Barry 3 20th-century, read-in-2015 Brave New World meets The Scarlet Letter meets... The Bell Jar?! My #YearOfAtwood continues with The Handmaid's Tale, probably Atwood's most popular novel.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood presents us with a dystopian society. Offred, our protagonist and narrator, is a handmaid. Handmaids are a group of women who are forced to have children for other couples within the nation of Gilead. It's all very Huxleyan. The novel as a whole is basically your common or garden dystopia but Offred's narration is just so refreshing and almost enjoyable to read (the prose, not what she's writing about). It was the same type of narrative voice that can be found in Plath's The Bell Jar, another novel about a woman struggling through an oppressive mindset. [spoilers removed] Overall this is a memorable and tough novel, certain parts are not for the faint-hearted. I will say that I enjoyed The Edible Woman more than this novel though. But of course, that's just my personal opinion. Thus continues the #YearOfAtwood!]]> 3.95 1985 The Handmaid's Tale
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Barry
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2015/03/05
date added: 2015/03/06
shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2015
review:
Brave New World meets The Scarlet Letter meets... The Bell Jar?! My #YearOfAtwood continues with The Handmaid's Tale, probably Atwood's most popular novel.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood presents us with a dystopian society. Offred, our protagonist and narrator, is a handmaid. Handmaids are a group of women who are forced to have children for other couples within the nation of Gilead. It's all very Huxleyan. The novel as a whole is basically your common or garden dystopia but Offred's narration is just so refreshing and almost enjoyable to read (the prose, not what she's writing about). It was the same type of narrative voice that can be found in Plath's The Bell Jar, another novel about a woman struggling through an oppressive mindset. [spoilers removed] Overall this is a memorable and tough novel, certain parts are not for the faint-hearted. I will say that I enjoyed The Edible Woman more than this novel though. But of course, that's just my personal opinion. Thus continues the #YearOfAtwood!
]]> The Buried Giant 22706570
The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.

Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.

Included on TIME Magazine's "THE 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME"]]> 345 Kazuo Ishiguro 0571315038 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 The Buried Giant. Oh boy, if only that excitement hadn't been sourly crushed by the actual contents of this novel.

The Buried Giant is very different from all of Ishiguro's other novels. In fact it's so different that I can't even compare it to any of his previous novels. The main difference is of course that this is essentially a fantasy novel. Now I'll be the first to put my hands up and admit that I'm not a massive fan of the fantasy genre. I enjoy the occasional Terry Pratchett novel and I've dipped in and out of the Narnia universe but that's where my fantasy education ends. If there was any author who could get me excited about a fantasy novel, it was Kazuo Ishiguro. This novel is set in the 6th Century, contains references to ogres on the very first page and there's a Beowulfian quest involving a dragon. I'm very much out of my literary comfort zone.

The novel begins with two characters, an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice. At first I really enjoyed these two. In fact I really enjoyed this novel. For, like, the first fifty pages. I really wished Ishiguro just stayed with these two. I enjoyed their company as they set off on a quest to find their son in another village. However, it's when a certain character from Arthurian legend turns up that this novel fell apart in my hands like wet cake. For the remaining 300ish pages this novel stops being Tolkien and turns into Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In fact, when this figure from folklore appears, this novel stops reading like literary fiction and starts reading like, well, fanfiction. At least that's how I felt. And I'm pretty sure Ishiguro didn't intend spending ten years writing Merlin fanfiction but here we are.

Nobody was expecting this to be The Remains of the Day (ah, The Remains of the Day, where has the author who wrote you gone?) but since this is Ishiguro's first novel in ten years (with the exception of his rather enjoyable short story collection Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall from 2009) we deserve more from this. I want to burst into Ishiguro's study and shout, "You wrote The Unconsoled and now you think you can pass off this sub-par fantasy novel as part of your oeuvre?!". Listen Ishiguro, if you're reading this, I'm not as angry as I am after reading Never Let Me Go (that terrible, terrible novel that I'm still trying to forget) but ugh, you had ten years. Joyce wrote Ulysses in seven. Look Kaz, I just don't know anymore. Three stinkers in a row? (Don't think I've forgotten about When We Were Orphans) I just don't know what to do with you anymore. I'm not angry Kaz, I'm just very disappointed.]]> 3.44 2015 The Buried Giant
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Barry
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2015/03/04
date added: 2015/03/04
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
As someone who has read all of Ishiguro's previous works I was of course more than excited to finally get my hands on a copy of The Buried Giant. Oh boy, if only that excitement hadn't been sourly crushed by the actual contents of this novel.

The Buried Giant is very different from all of Ishiguro's other novels. In fact it's so different that I can't even compare it to any of his previous novels. The main difference is of course that this is essentially a fantasy novel. Now I'll be the first to put my hands up and admit that I'm not a massive fan of the fantasy genre. I enjoy the occasional Terry Pratchett novel and I've dipped in and out of the Narnia universe but that's where my fantasy education ends. If there was any author who could get me excited about a fantasy novel, it was Kazuo Ishiguro. This novel is set in the 6th Century, contains references to ogres on the very first page and there's a Beowulfian quest involving a dragon. I'm very much out of my literary comfort zone.

The novel begins with two characters, an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice. At first I really enjoyed these two. In fact I really enjoyed this novel. For, like, the first fifty pages. I really wished Ishiguro just stayed with these two. I enjoyed their company as they set off on a quest to find their son in another village. However, it's when a certain character from Arthurian legend turns up that this novel fell apart in my hands like wet cake. For the remaining 300ish pages this novel stops being Tolkien and turns into Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In fact, when this figure from folklore appears, this novel stops reading like literary fiction and starts reading like, well, fanfiction. At least that's how I felt. And I'm pretty sure Ishiguro didn't intend spending ten years writing Merlin fanfiction but here we are.

Nobody was expecting this to be The Remains of the Day (ah, The Remains of the Day, where has the author who wrote you gone?) but since this is Ishiguro's first novel in ten years (with the exception of his rather enjoyable short story collection Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall from 2009) we deserve more from this. I want to burst into Ishiguro's study and shout, "You wrote The Unconsoled and now you think you can pass off this sub-par fantasy novel as part of your oeuvre?!". Listen Ishiguro, if you're reading this, I'm not as angry as I am after reading Never Let Me Go (that terrible, terrible novel that I'm still trying to forget) but ugh, you had ten years. Joyce wrote Ulysses in seven. Look Kaz, I just don't know anymore. Three stinkers in a row? (Don't think I've forgotten about When We Were Orphans) I just don't know what to do with you anymore. I'm not angry Kaz, I'm just very disappointed.
]]> The First Bad Man 24980019 No One Belongs Here More Than You, a spectacular debut novel that is so heartbreaking, so dirty, so tender, so funny--so Miranda July--readers will be blown away.

Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people's babies. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women's self-defense non-profit where she works. She believes they've been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one.

When Cheryl's bosses ask if their twenty-one-year-old daughter Clee can move into her house for a little while, Cheryl's eccentrically-ordered world explodes. And yet it is Clee--the selfish, cruel blond bombshell--who bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime.

Tender, gripping, slyly hilarious, infused with raging sexual fantasies and fierce maternal love, Miranda July's first novel confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic and important voice today, and a writer for all time. The First Bad Man is dazzling, disorienting, and unforgettable.]]> 276 Miranda July 1782116729 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 I've been meaning to buy that one myself,"

"Yeah I saw Lena Dunham gave it a good review so I had to pick it up!"

-The interaction between the lady behind the counter in Waterstone's and I when I bought this book.


The First Bad Man is a novel that has been hyped for months. Literally every single of those "Reads to Look Out For in 2015" lists has had this one near the top. I must admit that this is my first experience with July's writing. I know she has some short stories floating around somewhere so I'll catch them eventually. So, is The First Bad Man deserving of the hype? Yes. Or no actually. No, yes. Hmm. Maybe? Let's see.

We are presented with Cheryl Glickman, our protaginist. A woman who Dave Eggers called, 'one of the most original, most confounding and strangely sympathetic characters in recent fiction.' I have a feeling that Eggers has been diagnosed with a severe case of hyperbole here. In many ways, Cheryl reminded me of a highly neurotic version of the protaginist of Jenny Offill's brilliant short novel Dept. of Speculation, one of the best novels of last year. I've seen many review of this novel describing Cheryl as "quirky". God I hate that word. I refuse to ever use it. Cheryl is highly individual, eccentric, and idiosyncratic. She's Frances Ha and Annie Hall. She gets dumped with her boss' daughter, ninteen-year-old Clee, and this is where the novel tries to begin. Not only does Cheryl, a woman in her early forties, have to deal with a teenager claiming squatter's rights on her sofa, she is also kind of obsessed with Phillip, a man who is twenty years her senior. However, Phillip has other, Nabokovian, plans.

The first half of this novel middles along. It mainly concerns Cheryl's life and those around her. Nothing much happens. I might even go so far as to say the first half is boring. Well it isn't boring per se. To use Art Historical terms, the first half is Northern Renaissance and the second half is Rococo. The novel comes alive in the second half due to an event which inverts everything on its head. Suddenly you begin caring about the characters. You see their human side. It was in the second half that I really began enjoying this odd, odd novel. The plot is like that of the seminal classic Weird Science. At first it's great, partying with mid-1980s Kelly LeBrock but then you've got to deal with real issues. Like Bill Paxton being turned into a gigantic talking pile of shit.

This novel is definitely weird. It's different. There isn't a single sane character in there. It's like an episode of Kath & Kim but also not like that at all. Margaret Atwood meets Woody Allen in this novel but not in the way you want. So, can we answer the question now? Is The First Bad Man worth the hype? I say, yes. Yes because it is unlike any other novel I've read. Yes because it makes you laugh at the most inappropriate of things. Yes because of the phrase "mutual soaping". Yes because it is a realistic portrayal of life, no matter how zany. Yes. It is worth the hype. ]]> 3.71 2015 The First Bad Man
author: Miranda July
name: Barry
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/02/19
date added: 2015/02/20
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
"I've been meaning to buy that one myself,"

"Yeah I saw Lena Dunham gave it a good review so I had to pick it up!"

-The interaction between the lady behind the counter in Waterstone's and I when I bought this book.


The First Bad Man is a novel that has been hyped for months. Literally every single of those "Reads to Look Out For in 2015" lists has had this one near the top. I must admit that this is my first experience with July's writing. I know she has some short stories floating around somewhere so I'll catch them eventually. So, is The First Bad Man deserving of the hype? Yes. Or no actually. No, yes. Hmm. Maybe? Let's see.

We are presented with Cheryl Glickman, our protaginist. A woman who Dave Eggers called, 'one of the most original, most confounding and strangely sympathetic characters in recent fiction.' I have a feeling that Eggers has been diagnosed with a severe case of hyperbole here. In many ways, Cheryl reminded me of a highly neurotic version of the protaginist of Jenny Offill's brilliant short novel Dept. of Speculation, one of the best novels of last year. I've seen many review of this novel describing Cheryl as "quirky". God I hate that word. I refuse to ever use it. Cheryl is highly individual, eccentric, and idiosyncratic. She's Frances Ha and Annie Hall. She gets dumped with her boss' daughter, ninteen-year-old Clee, and this is where the novel tries to begin. Not only does Cheryl, a woman in her early forties, have to deal with a teenager claiming squatter's rights on her sofa, she is also kind of obsessed with Phillip, a man who is twenty years her senior. However, Phillip has other, Nabokovian, plans.

The first half of this novel middles along. It mainly concerns Cheryl's life and those around her. Nothing much happens. I might even go so far as to say the first half is boring. Well it isn't boring per se. To use Art Historical terms, the first half is Northern Renaissance and the second half is Rococo. The novel comes alive in the second half due to an event which inverts everything on its head. Suddenly you begin caring about the characters. You see their human side. It was in the second half that I really began enjoying this odd, odd novel. The plot is like that of the seminal classic Weird Science. At first it's great, partying with mid-1980s Kelly LeBrock but then you've got to deal with real issues. Like Bill Paxton being turned into a gigantic talking pile of shit.

This novel is definitely weird. It's different. There isn't a single sane character in there. It's like an episode of Kath & Kim but also not like that at all. Margaret Atwood meets Woody Allen in this novel but not in the way you want. So, can we answer the question now? Is The First Bad Man worth the hype? I say, yes. Yes because it is unlike any other novel I've read. Yes because it makes you laugh at the most inappropriate of things. Yes because of the phrase "mutual soaping". Yes because it is a realistic portrayal of life, no matter how zany. Yes. It is worth the hype.
]]> Hotel World 1527913 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
A finalist for the Booker Award in 2001, Ali Smith's fiction debut is a truly inventive narrative that is told through the voices of a handful of different characters. Among them is the 19-year-old hotel chambermaid Sara Wilby, who, in a fleeting moment of terrible imprudence, wagered a coworker that she could fit her entire body into the hotel dumbwaiter. She did, but under her weight the cables snapped, and in a matter of seconds she fell four floors to a violent death.


However, readers meet Sara only after her fatal error in judgment; now she is a ghost wandering the scene of her accident, desperate to experience again even a few precious moments of earthly existence. From her incorporeal vantage point, Sara is able to observe both the daily lives and future destinies of her family and her former coworkers, all of whom struggle to come to terms with her foolish act -- without quite realizing that in doing so, they will allow Sara to move on as well. As her energies begin to wane, the ghostly Sara becomes obsessed with learning just one last thing: exactly how long it took for her to die. To accomplish this, fate must play a different hand, bringing five unrelated people from very different walks of life together in the typically transient setting of an urban hotel.


Ali Smith's explicit, unsentimental prose and brilliantly precise descriptions
of the disassociative, catastrophic, but
also redemptive aftermath of a sudden death make Hotel World at once a challenging, sad, beautiful, and ultimately comforting love-
and life-affirming novel. (Winter 2002 Selection)

]]> 256 Ali Smith 0241141095 Barry 2 21st-century, read-in-2015 3.32 2001 Hotel World
author: Ali Smith
name: Barry
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2015/02/17
date added: 2015/02/20
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
A good, but nowhere near as good as her others, novel from one of my favourite authors Ali Smith. This is probably her most depressing novel, I mean, one of the narrators is literally a dead person. All the action takes place around a hotel, The Global Hotel. Even from the name of the hotel you can tell that this novel is full of metaphor for the human condition. Usually I like that sort of this but this one didn't do it for me. I'm kinda disappointed but I can't be mad at Ali. She's a brilliant modernist writer, probably the best still writing today.
]]> A Hero of Our Time 5986287 "One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper."--Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov, and holds up a mirror not only to Lermontov's time but also to our own.

]]> 208 Mikhail Lermontov 0143105639 Barry 2 19th-century, read-in-2015 A Hero of Our Time has an interesting format. It's split into sections but these sections are all very different and sometimes don't even involve our "hero" Pechorin. This is all well and good but for a novel that's under 200 pages you'd think that Lermontov would have actually focused on some sort of plot instead of piss arseing around with the structure. Not to mention that this novel is basically Caucasus fanfiction. At points you'd think Lermontov got off with the mountains or something the way he writes about them. It's like Tolkien and his blades of fucking grass. However, eventually the story does actually being at some point near the end and we are presented with an enjoyable and classic love story, Russian style (which is shorthand for death). Why would you read this? Well because it's basically Russian literature's equivalent of David Copperfield and the main character, Pechorin, is a whiny cunt. I mean he hates everything and is constantly complaining about women and life and life and women, he's basically the Russian Holden Caulfield but without the brother issues. I saw a lot of myself in Pechorin. Which worried me slightly. ]]> 3.95 1839 A Hero of Our Time
author: Mikhail Lermontov
name: Barry
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1839
rating: 2
read at: 2015/02/16
date added: 2015/02/20
shelves: 19th-century, read-in-2015
review:
I've been meaning to read this one for a while. It's one of those Russian classics that's always on those lists. A Hero of Our Time has an interesting format. It's split into sections but these sections are all very different and sometimes don't even involve our "hero" Pechorin. This is all well and good but for a novel that's under 200 pages you'd think that Lermontov would have actually focused on some sort of plot instead of piss arseing around with the structure. Not to mention that this novel is basically Caucasus fanfiction. At points you'd think Lermontov got off with the mountains or something the way he writes about them. It's like Tolkien and his blades of fucking grass. However, eventually the story does actually being at some point near the end and we are presented with an enjoyable and classic love story, Russian style (which is shorthand for death). Why would you read this? Well because it's basically Russian literature's equivalent of David Copperfield and the main character, Pechorin, is a whiny cunt. I mean he hates everything and is constantly complaining about women and life and life and women, he's basically the Russian Holden Caulfield but without the brother issues. I saw a lot of myself in Pechorin. Which worried me slightly.
]]> The Autograph Man 14310 Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire.
Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers in The Autograph Man a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.]]> 420 Zadie Smith 0140276343 Barry 3 21st-century, read-in-2015 White Teeth? Well you can't, but Smith gives us a very different but equally enjoyable novel. The plot of The Autograph Man is, shall we say, a bit more conventional than White Teeth. Smith's wonderful ability to capture speech in her prose is as admirable here as ever and importantly, it's funny! Sadly this novel has been relegated to the sidelines by all of her other novels but true Smith fans will read this and keep it as their dirty little secret.]]> 3.05 2002 The Autograph Man
author: Zadie Smith
name: Barry
average rating: 3.05
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2015/02/10
date added: 2015/02/11
shelves: 21st-century, read-in-2015
review:
How can you possibly follow up White Teeth? Well you can't, but Smith gives us a very different but equally enjoyable novel. The plot of The Autograph Man is, shall we say, a bit more conventional than White Teeth. Smith's wonderful ability to capture speech in her prose is as admirable here as ever and importantly, it's funny! Sadly this novel has been relegated to the sidelines by all of her other novels but true Smith fans will read this and keep it as their dirty little secret.
]]>