sensible shoes: a liberal librarian's blog

Some of the books I hated in the 00s

2009-12-30T14:36:47Z

There are three books in my reading career that I picked up and threw across the room: On the Road, The White Goddess and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. None of the books on my 00s made me that angry (which may be a measure of literary quality, aft...

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Some of my favorite books of the 2000s

2009-12-30T14:17:05Z

I know I really love a book when I'm compelled to pick up a phone and tell my sisters to read it, or when I force my husband to listen to a recap in excruciating detail. SO, here are some books that made me want to stop people on the street and d...

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Book Review: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

2009-12-30T13:55:20Z

The Night Watch was Sarah Waters's first novel not set in the Victorian era, and for several years I resisted reading it for that reason (silly me). This one's set in World War II London, working backward from 1947 to 1941, and concerns the love...

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Quotation marks and literary fiction.

2009-12-29T18:25:04Z

So glad that someone besides me is bothered by the fad in literary fiction to omit quotation marks for dialogue. Thanks, Laura Miller!

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Book Review: This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

2009-12-13T13:06:09Z

Collect four adult siblings from an extremely dysfunctional family and force them to sit shiva for seven days for their father. It's an easy premise for funny domestic fiction or an ensemble-cast movie (which is already "in development", accordi...

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Book Review: You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

2009-12-09T12:15:33Z

I was crazy about Chaon's latest, Await Your Reply. This one, his first novel, has a similar structure in that it tells a story through three different characters, and similar questions about identity and sense of self, but it has a completely d...

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Book Review: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

2009-12-09T12:13:46Z

I finally got around to reading the Man Booker winner from 2008. Savagely funny and often just savage, it's a critique of contemporary India from the viewpoint of a rich man's chauffeur. We know from the start that the chauffer, Balram Halwa...

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Book Review: America America by Ethan Canin

2009-10-29T21:19:13Z

America America is a quietly stunning book about politics, wealth, family, love and loyalty. It bears comparison with The Great Gatsby and An American Tragedy, but it is its own book and I would not be surprised to see it enter the canon as a mode...

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Book Review: The Missing by Sarah Langan

2009-10-24T16:28:40Z

In The Missing, an industrial accident unleashes a virus that creates zombie-like flesh eaters, feasting on an affluent town in Maine. I picked this up as my annual Halloween read, but it didn't do much for me. The story and characters were int...

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Book Review: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

2009-10-24T16:17:42Z

I can't write a fair review of an "inspirational" book, because I'm not a fan of the genre. I suppose theses tales are supposed to be filled with cardboard characters that represent Ideas. To the extent that I pondered the ideas herein, I did...

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