Book Reviews
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Book ReviewsThe Housekeeper + The Professor
If you can imagine Kazuo Ishiguro writing 50 First Dates, then you basically have The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa. A single mother is... Read more »| 04 May 2010 -
Book ReviewsDown the Figure 7
It may be an increasingly overused cliché, but the past – even our own – can genuinely seem like a foreign country where people did things... Read more »| 04 May 2010 -
Book Reviews
Orphans of Eldorado by Milton Hatoum
Something about Miltoun Hatoum’s tale, set in the Amazon Basin, is unnerving and otherworldly. Somewhere in the vivid descriptions of the rich Amazonia... Read more »| 30 Apr 2010 -
Book ReviewsWould You Eat Your Cat? by Jeremy Stangroom
This book presents us with several ethical conundrums to get us to think about moral philosophy and how we see the world. The somewhat twee world of ... Read more »| 30 Apr 2010 -
Book Reviews
Country Driving
As a foreigner living in Beijing, Peter Hessler acquired a Chinese driver’s licence and began taking trips around the country. He used this opportunity... Read more »| 29 Apr 2010 -
Book ReviewsThe Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens
Peter Hitchens was once an atheist, but is now a strong advocate of Christianity. Hitchens belongs to the Church of England, but one of its older branches, w... Read more »| 26 Apr 2010
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Book Reviews
The Diary of Miss Idilia
The Diary of Miss Idilia is classified as a ‘Memoir’ and certainly the facts are there and provide the basis for a terrific story, but the superf... Read more »| 21 Apr 2010 -
Book ReviewsGoogled: The End of the World As We Know It
Few companies or products gain such a strong public prominence in the world that their name becomes a verb. Those that do have invariably pushed thro... Read more »| 21 Apr 2010 -
Book Reviews
The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose
It's a horrible irony that the OED defines “pacific” as “characterized or tending to peace; tranquil”; between 1941 and 1945,... Read more »| 19 Apr 2010 -
Book Reviews
The Two Kinds of Decay
While still at college, Sarah Manguso caught what she thought was a head cold. A member of a choir with a solo in an upcoming concert, she fought it ... Read more »| 31 Mar 2010 -
Book Reviews
The Lilac Thief by Young Dawkins
The Lilac Thief is a collection of Young Dawkins’ spoken word beat poetry. Normally that description would indicate two strikes against –... Read more »| 25 Mar 2010 -
Book Reviews
The Nigger Factory by Gil Scott-Heron
It’s an incendiary title, but that’s just because it’s making an angry political point about the state of education for black Ameri... Read more »| 25 Mar 2010 -
Book Reviews
J.D. Salinger: A Life Raised High by Kenneth Slawenski
When J.D. Salinger died earlier this year, a glut of rushed, cash-in biographies could have been expected. However, A Life Raised High is much better... Read more »| 24 Mar 2010 -
Book Reviews
The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis's best book since his memoir Experience (2000), presents itself as a disquisition on the victories and defeats of the... Read more »| 23 Mar 2010 -
Book Reviews
Hitler's Private Library by Timothy W. Ryback
Contrary to popular perception, Adolf Hitler did frequently cherish books rather than char them. That revelation is not the only original element of this ou... Read more »| 02 Mar 2010