It is so easy to lie with numbers – or not exactly lie, but give an impression that serves one aim or another. It’s quite an eye-opener to the reader; even if some ways are universally known, there always seems to be yet another way of using numbers or statistics to bluff people. Because pattern […]
A bit too sweet, a bit too light at times, pure entertainment, I admit. I admit Miss Julia has some growing up to when getting in terms of the inheritance, in more ways than one, his two-timing husband left her with, but not quite sufficiently. And it has its curious old-fashioned moments, caused by the […]
This reader wondered a bit why would Jason, the narrator, wanted to look back and relive his months as a thirteen-year-old in a small village in the nineteen eighties. Especially with school and its bullies, his own family gradually breaking up, and stammering always somewhere near, almost having a life of its own. And […]
A real post.modern classic, with its essays on Victorian life, and alternative endings. I eagerly read it through the first time, and the rereading — for the book group — was certainly not wasted. Well-written, living characters, events interesting and those essays, they just give more life to the story. At least to this reader.
Nine longish short stories, starting with the amazing Hugo-winner ‘The Faery Handbag’, filled with sense of wonder, or a sense of everyday life, slightly different. At least at the start. And filled with great characters, in cat skin or not, stuff sometimes nightmares are made of, sometimes not. A clichéd review, perhaps, but […]
A French classic, yes, but somehow it doesn’t seem to catch me, speak to me. Maybe because it’s been too long since I was a teenager. (This is supposed to be a growing up story.) Or maybe because the life these characters have doesn’t touch mine. Or I find their motivations too strange to me […]
I would prefer not to forget Bartleby, that very curious character brought to us by Herman Melville, but I won’t be forgetting this book either. Marcelo, a Catalan clerk, who has managed to publish a book, has become a Bartleby, not able to write anything He sets out to find other Bartlebys, and reasons why […]
To put it simply, Fannie Flagg entertains me, makes me laugh. Aloud, too. And some days, we all need to laugh, need to be entertained. Her main character, Elner Shimfissle dies, and gets to heaven, but is returned, from the looks of it, to make some things right. And affects the whole […]
It is hard to entertain, and, at the same time, talk about things that matter. Like life .. and things like science, and have people in the text lead lives that sound possible, quite normal. Robert J. Sawyer manages to do that, to me at least. It’s refreshing to read a book, in which, in […]
What if – human beings just (POOF!) disappeared tomorrow? What would happen to earth, how would the disappearance affects its flora and fauna, how long would it take all traces of humankind to disappear, too? Are there any lasting mementoes, until the sun becomes a bit bigger than now, that is. It may be that […]