I have often thought that the best first sentence in a novel is in The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied [...]
I first learned about The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts when I read a review of it in the Washington Post here. Suitably intrigued, I picked it up and read.
The Feminine Mistake darts around like a minnow and continually circles back to a couple of core points. It is a little Momento-ish since each chapter [...]
It has been almost twenty years since I bought a magnet with this quote on it (attributed to Mark Twain). I think it is useful advice.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the [...]
When I picked up A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, I thought I was going to read a steampunk novel. However, what I got included a lot more. In many ways it was like The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (which I wrote about here) meets V for Vendetta (plus more).
There [...]
While I generally enjoyed the book, the problem with Everyman by Philip Roth is that it is a little inaccurately sold. The book is a collection of memories of a single man (supposedly an ordinary man) that starts with his funeral.
The problem is this: the main character isn’t ordinary. His father is a well-off jewelry [...]
As compelling as it is, this book totally freaked me out. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a “coming of age story” about the “coming of age” of people (clones) who are being raised so that the vital organs can be harvested.
It is complete with teenage angst, romance and girl infighting (not [...]
As I wrote here, Milan Kundera is a genius. His books are nearly perfect. Identity is a quick, but brilliant, read and is filled with many interesting quotes. Ultimately, it is a love story, but it is also a view of external events via the interior world.
Some of the quotes are short, [...]
As a general rule, I don’t think that The Hours by Michael Cunningham has much in common with Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. But, the following quotes have a similar feel and message.
From Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart contemplating while she is waiting for Hank Rearden:
The hours ahead, like all her nights with him, [...]
Milan Kundera just published a work of non-fiction called The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts.
Let me start by making it clear that I love every word Milan Kundera has ever written. I think he is brilliant and his books (since the ones that I have read are translations) are almost enough for me to [...]
This quote has been making the email rounds (I did a brief search and could not find the author. If anyone knows who wrote this, I would love to know):
I want to live my next life backwards.
You start out dead, and get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in an old age [...]
