Thursday, October 05, 2023

Hâsib and the Queen of Serpents by David B.

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As far as I can tell, I've never read a book by David B. before - maybe some shorter pieces in Mome  and other anthologies, but never a ...
Wednesday, October 04, 2023

Olympia by Vivés, Ruppert + Mulot

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Can you cook the same soufflé twice? You can certainly try  - and the trio of Bastien Vivés, Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot do so here. Ol...
Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Call for the Dead by John Le Carré

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I have nowhere to go from here but forward. I've been reading Le Carré's early novels in a weird sequence - first (ten years ago), u...
Monday, October 02, 2023

This Year: 2009

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"This Year" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song from one year of my life. See  the introduction  for more. This may b...
Sunday, October 01, 2023

Books Read: September 2023

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Another month; more books read. Here's the list: Jordan Crane, Keeping Two  (digital, 9/1) Dawn Powell, The Locusts Have No King  (in No...
Saturday, September 30, 2023

Quote of the Week: All Lost in the Supermarket

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People who have never had a period of living with anxiety and panic don't understand that the realness  of you is an actual feeling that...
Friday, September 29, 2023

Zero Girl by Sam Kieth

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Some creators consistently deliver detailed plots and realistic worlds and naturalistic dialogue. They make the suspension of disbelief simp...
Thursday, September 28, 2023

The Lighthouse by Paco Roca

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This is a 2004 graphic novel - should I say bande dessinée ? Roca is Spanish, but my sense is the term is used generally across Europe - tha...
Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

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Matt Haig is a novelist; I read one of his books long ago - The Dead Fathers Club , a riff on Hamlet  that I liked a lot, offered in the SFB...
Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Enlightened by Sachi Ediriweera

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I think I'm writing for people roughly in my position: respectful, interested, only slightly informed. People who might have unexpected ...
Monday, September 25, 2023

This Year: 2008

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"This Year" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song from one year of my life. See  the introduction  for more. I knew I...
Sunday, September 24, 2023

Reviewing the Mail: Week of September 23, 2023

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I have four books to mention this week - three that I found randomly on library shelves, while I was there for something else, and one that ...
Saturday, September 23, 2023

Quote of the Week: Je parle français?

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Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique in Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty,...
Friday, September 22, 2023

Look by Jon Nielsen

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Artie is a cute little robot in an apocalyptic, post-human landscape, roaming through a desert on Earth with a single job, that, frankly, se...
Thursday, September 21, 2023

The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse

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I forget just how much P.G. Wodehouse's books twine together. Yes, obviously he has the clear series: Jeeves and Blandings and Psmith, m...