“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger
When I talked about why I blogged, I used to use this book as my stock example. Here I am in September 2008, for example: The original idea of this blog was to provide somewhere for me to record the…
“The Paperchase” by Marcel Theroux
Damien March, a bored BBC journalist on the night shift, suddenly inherits a house on an island off the coast of Cape Cod from his long-lost uncle Patrick. There is a condition, however – he must preserve the house exactly…
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera
I’ve listed Milan Kundera as one of my favourite authors for a while now, but oddly I’d never read his most famous book until now. It was definitely no letdown – the same philosophical style I’ve come to expect, but…
Book review – BBC National Short Story Award 2008
This is a collection of the five shortlisted stories for the 2008 BBC National Short Story Award. It’s a prestigious competition so naturally the standard of writing in all five stories was very high, even though some were more interesting…
“The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov
The devil is unleashed in Stalinist Moscow. The funny thing is that while the devil kills, maims and causes havoc throughout the city, he is very far from a traditional definition of evil. In fact, the character struck me as…
Holiday reading
I had a very relaxing holiday, and had time for lots of reading: Also read, but not pictured, were: Global Shift by Edmund J. Bourne Commonwealth Short Stories edited by Anna Rutherford and Donald Hannah West Indian Folk Tales retold…
“Netherland” by Joseph O’Neill
The narrative style was very interesting in this book. In the present, Hans van den Broek is at home with his wife Rachel in London, receiving a phone call to say that his old friend Chuck Ramkissoon has been found…
“The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga
I didn’t like this book when I started it. Even when I was browsing it in the bookshop, I wasn’t that keen – I only bought it because it was half-price and it had won the Booker Prize. Surprising, then,…
Borges marathon, part 1: The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell
So I had this great idea to write a separate review for every short story every written by the master of short stories (or short fictions as they’re often called, for reasons that will become apparent), Jorge Luis Borges. I’m…