Dec 9
Several months ago, Book Worm and I tried to make our way through the 2015 Man Booker Longlist books. Book Worm finished Did You Ever Have a Family a while ago and has been patiently waiting on me so we could post a joint review. Now I’m done. Find out what we both thought about his book and let us know what you thought. Read more
Dec 4
The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
Published in 2015. Part of the Hogarth Shakespeare Retold series
Reviewed by Book Worm
Rating 5 stars
Find it here: The Gap of Time: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare)
Amazon synopsis: The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s “late plays.” It tells the story of a king whose jealousy results in the banishment of his baby daughter and the death of his beautiful wife. His daughter is found and brought up by a shepherd on the Bohemian coast, but through a series of extraordinary events, father and daughter, and eventually mother too, are reunited.
In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson’s cover version of The Winter’s Tale, we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology and the elliptical nature of time. Written with energy and wit, this is a story of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand, and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other. Read more
Nov 11
Once again BookWorm and I find ourselves at different ends of the spectrum in our opinions about our latest 1001 read. Find out what we thought and let us know which one of us is more in line with your views about the book. Read more
Journey to the end of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Published in: 1932
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: Journey to the End of the Night
Synopsis from Goodreads: Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the readers by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel’s inevitable, sad conclusion.
Book Worm’s Review: I really struggled with this book and it felt much longer than its already long 600 odd pages. The main problem I had was that this was a first person narrative told from the point of view of French man Ferdinand Bardamu who I just couldn’t relate to. The narrative jumps around and lacks narrative consistency consistency. Unfortunately, it really comes down to the fact that I found most of it boring.
The book is jam packed with footnotes which were all essential to understanding the story. For example, many of the footnotes revealed the “in” jokes that Céline was using — references that would have gone unnoticed by those of us not familiar with Paris. For the reader who understood those references this is probably a very amusing book.
I gave this 3 stars due to the fact that while I may not have enjoyed it, it is nowhere near as bad as some of the books the 1001 list has forced me to read so far.
I think the kind of reader who would enjoy this book would be someone who is very knowledgeable about France and Paris in particular. It would also suit those with a dark sense of humor as some of the darker events could be viewed as humorous.
What do you think? Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Journey to the End of the Night
We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think?
Oct 30
We initially wanted to feature this book for banned book week, but unfortunately we were not able to complete it in time. The Blind Owl is considered perhaps the most famous literary work of 20th century Iran. It was written in the late 1930s and was originally published as a limited edition that was banned from publication in Iran. Find out what we thought about the book. Read more
Oct 6
The Man Booker Prize will be announced next tuesday. Monday we will make our final prediction for winner. Before we do so, we wanted to post a final review for one of the books that has been shortlisted. Find out what Book Worm thought about James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings. Read more
Sep 30
It’s time for our monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of September and we’ll highlight our upcoming October content. We’ve also added a list of upcoming book releases for October (scroll to the end for the list).
One randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in September and what you look forward to reading in October. Read more
Sep 14
Tomorrow the 2015 Man Booker short list will be announced, so it is time for some predictions! You may have noticed that our blog has been taken over by long list book reviews lately. We’ll get back to our regular post schedule next week. We came close to reading all the long list books between the two of us. Not too bad considering that neither of us had read any of the books prior to the announcement. So we completed 11.5/13 books (Book Worm is half-way through A Brief History of Seven Killings). We reviewed 9 of those books and Jen will post her review of The Moor’s Account next week. For each book, we rated with 5 criteria including originality, character complexity, and writing. Two 2 “free” points were given for being published in English and being published in the U.K (criteria for the Man Booker Prize). See which books we read, how we personally ranked them, and which ones we think will actually make the cut.
Read more
Sep 10
Less than 1 week away from the shortlist announcement and we actually might make it through the entire list! This last week has been a rush to get them all finished before the 15th. We’ll go back to our usual 3 days per week posting schedule as soon as we are done with the long list books. Next up… The Year of the Runaways by Sahota. Will this make our short list? Read more
Sep 9
With the shortlist being announced on the 15th, we are hoping to pick up the pace and finish all the longlist books in the next week. Regular posts will be delayed so we can try to finish up our longlist reviews and make our predictions. Next up in our 2015 longlist travels is another book we both read: Anna Smaill’s The Chimes. Find out if it makes our shortlist. Read more
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 