Glenn's Updates en-US Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:46:20 -0700 60 Glenn's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review4933037526 Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:46:20 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene']]> /review/show/4933037526 The Unquiet Englishman by Richard Greene Glenn gave 4 stars to The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene (Hardcover) by Richard Greene
Three paragraphs from the end of this biography, the author writes of the subject’s final, fatal illness: “The exactness of his thinking made him hard to comfort.� ]]> Review6904314745 Sat, 05 Oct 2024 16:15:09 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'A Messy Murder']]> /review/show/6904314745 A Messy Murder by Simon Brett Glenn gave 4 stars to A Messy Murder (The Decluttering mysteries, 4) by Simon Brett
I liked the relaxed ease of the first-person narration. The mystery element is fine, but the real appeal is in how the need to declutter unlocks aspects of personality. My favorite was narrator Ellen’s former client, an elderly woman, now living a neat existence, whom Ellen checks up on, taking her snacks and lingering to chat: “She was one of those defiant elderly women who would never admit under torture that she was lonely, but I think she appreciated my company.� Brett slips this character into the mystery plot nicely. He is a writer to admire. ]]> Review6904280855 Sat, 05 Oct 2024 15:57:47 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'Of Human Bondage']]> /review/show/6904280855 Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham Glenn gave 3 stars to Of Human Bondage (Hardcover) by W. Somerset Maugham
Still keeping my New Year resolution to read at least one (new to me) classic book a month. This novel, published in 1915, has been spoken of highly by a number of friends, but it was a very slight disappointment, I guess. Maugham is an accomplished storyteller, however, and somehow he keeps a reader turning pages (over 700 of them) through all the ups and downs of Philip Carey’s early life. The last fourth of the novel is the best. Some of the scenes of Philip’s apprenticeship as a doctor at sick beds and with a supportive family of friends are moving and memorable. Maugham may have been at his best as a writer of short stories. When Maugham is making eyes at me, the results seem the best if it’s a book of stories. ]]> ReadStatus8419070670 Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:32:11 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn has read 'Anything for a Quiet Life: And Other New Mystery Stories']]> /review/show/6854842253 Anything for a Quiet Life by Michael Gilbert Glenn has read Anything for a Quiet Life: And Other New Mystery Stories by Michael Gilbert
]]> CommunityQuestion3124336 Sat, 15 Jun 2024 07:35:25 -0700 <![CDATA[#<CommunityQuestion:0x0000555572ecb7c0>]]> Review6425562759 Wed, 01 May 2024 06:39:06 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'Candida: A Pleasant Play']]> /review/show/6425562759 Candida by George Bernard Shaw Glenn gave 5 stars to Candida: A Pleasant Play (Paperback) by George Bernard Shaw
In the year of Barbie the movie, this play is especially ripe for re-reading since Shaw shows how the “Ken stereotype� is just as damaging and crippling as the Barbie stereotype. It’s about a handsome, popular London clergyman who doesn’t see that his mother, sisters, and wife have made sacrifices and paved the way for his success and that this emotional sheltering has hampered his own maturity. Many brilliant conversations enliven this comedy of ideas, especially the one between the young poet Marchbanks and Prossy, the minister’s secretary, at the start of Act Two and the powerful climax, when the scales fall from the clergyman’s eyes. The BBC Radio 4 audio with Hannah Gordon is better, I think, than the L.A. TheatreWorks audio, though both bring the play to life. ]]> Review6438127446 Wed, 01 May 2024 06:37:23 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder']]> /review/show/6438127446 Perplexing Plots by David Bordwell Glenn gave 5 stars to Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder (Film and Culture Series) by David Bordwell
Perplexing Plots is about the influence that mystery/crime novels have had on mystery/crime films over time. It is as useful as a reference book as it is enjoyable as a critical study. The author, David Bordwell, who was 76, died on February 29, about a year after his book was published in early 2023. I’m still sad that I won’t be able to read more books by this insightful writer who has taught me so much about the movies. A book like this can be written only by someone who has spent his entire life seemingly watching every suspense movie and reading every mystery novel. Bordwell puts all that knowledge to amazing use. He spots trends, identifies patterns, and shows their importance in the growth of popular culture. He gleans rich information even from cheapie paperback originals. His enthusiasm for the subject is thrilling. It makes you think that even a Harlequin romance might contain, under all the banality, some kind of latent truth, if only our reading can discern it. ]]> Rating723723538 Wed, 01 May 2024 06:08:28 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn Hopp liked a review]]> /
Glenn Hopp liked Kristin Woods's review of These Silent Woods:
These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
"These Silent Woods wasn’t what I expected at all, but I was blown away. I thought I was starting my usual mystery/thriller, but it turned out to be so much more. I can’t adequately describe the incredible atmosphere and characterization without giving anything away, but the insightful, visceral prose is captivating in a way that reminds me of both Barbara Kingsolver and Flannery O’Connor. This book deserves to become a classic work of modern American literature. It’s that good."
]]> Review6448391778 Mon, 22 Apr 2024 10:47:34 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'In the Frame']]> /review/show/6448391778 In the Frame by Dick Francis Glenn gave 5 stars to In the Frame (Mass Market Paperback) by Dick Francis
Published in 1977, this is Dick Francis’s fourteenth novel and the admirable work of a true professional. The hero-narrator is an artist who specializes in paintings of horses, but the real lure of the novel is its thoroughness. It may be a thriller meant for popular consumption, but no corner seems to have been cut. Every sentence is trim and taut with a style as carefully edited and worked out as the plot. The main character and his artist friend talk and even seem to think believably like artists. You learn about how an artist sees the world. An array of settings appears, all fully realized. In short, great care has been taken with all aspects of the book no matter how small. The characters come off as real people to care about, and the danger seems all too real as well. I don’t know that I would rank this as his topmost book, but close to his best I should think, and certainly the work of a complete professional. Many writers would love to write one book as fully realized as this one, and Dick Francis reached this level of achievement again and again. ]]> Review6438901413 Sun, 21 Apr 2024 10:26:27 -0700 <![CDATA[Glenn added 'How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That's Great News']]> /review/show/6438901413 How the Bible Actually Works by Peter Enns Glenn gave 5 stars to How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That's Great News (Hardcover) by Peter Enns
Some people (including one reviewer here based only on comments from the dust jacket) get skittish and combative when they feel that something they have long been told at church is being questioned. I have read three books by Peter Enns, and all three are excellent at showing how the Bible imparts its wisdom and instruction obliquely rather than in the cut-and-dried fashion of an instruction manual. Peter Enns uses Proverbs 26.4-5 to illustrate (an example, I think, he mentions in all three books). The two verses are contradictory: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.� So which is it? What is the Bible saying here? We have to ponder the instruction to see the point, and Enns suggests that the wisdom of the entire Bible comes to us in the same roundabout, inductive way of the teaching we find in these two verses. In this example, what to do seems to depend on the nature of the fool. Some are so childish and disruptive that they only wish to make noise and hear themselves. Those arguments are best avoided. But others might be able to hear a different point of view and consider it. Those are situations to pursue. As with most things, it requires some poise to know. The Bible is usually coaxing us rather than dictating. In my experience, rigid conservatives cite John 14.6 (“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me�) in arguing that Christianity is the “one true religion� and often overlook the behavior mentioned in John 13.35 (“By this shall all men know that you are my disciples—that you have love one for another�), yet these definitional teachings are just ten verses apart. Enns is an ideal guide through the Bible: wise, patient, humble, subtle, and often engagingly humorous. ]]>